


~ Earthblood ~

by Spiced_Wine



Series: Dark Prince ~ The Darkness Has Its Own Light [5]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Abuse, Dark Prince ‘verse, F/M, Forced Pregnancy, Harem, Incest, Miscarriage, Rape, Slavery, Sud Sicanna, Vanimórë in the Harad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 00:22:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 37,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14965059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiced_Wine/pseuds/Spiced_Wine
Summary: ~ After the Last Alliance, Vanimórë traveled deep into the Harad, to the great desert trade-city of Sud Sicanna. He took the throne with violence, slaying the corrupt Sultan; he meant to rule until Sauron took form again and called him back – as Vanimórë knew he would.Nowhere, even in the South, whose people worshiped Morgoth and Sauron, were women treated so brutally as in Sud Sicanna, almost, Vanimórë thought, as though they were feared.In the temple, overlooked by a statue of Melkor, lay a great stone used as an altar of sacrifice in blood rituals dedicated to the world's darkest, oldest God. The Azanti tribe said that before Men awoke he, whom they named the Black One Whom Enslaves, murdered the Mother of the Earth upon it.Nothing in Vanimórë's fated life was chance. Something had drawn him to the wealthy, vicious city, something that knew whom and what he was. The question was, could this power be trusted?





	1. ~ The Silence of Fear ~

Note: This story contains descriptions of rape and abuse. If this triggers you please do not read. 

This story is part of Dark Prince, set after the Last Alliance when Vanimórë went South into the Harad and became ruler of Sud Sicanna the great desert city. It is an older story, but only archived on Faerie, so I am putting it up here just so it is archives somewhere else — just in case! 

Unlike the rest of my stories this deals primarily with Vanimórë and his relationships with women. It’s not finished, but since I finished Magnificat III, I know now how to end it. 

 

 

 

 

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~ The city opened out of the sands like a stone rose. It appeared to the lone rider as a shimmer of domes and white stone on the horizon, something seen in a waking dream, but as the traveler approached it solidified, real and immense. About its walls spread acres of tillage, and little villages clustered about oases where date-palms clattered in the hot winds.

 

Sud Sicanna existed because of this bounty of underground water in the most pitiless desert of the Harad; it was a hub, trade roads converged on it from north to south, west to east, for if water had founded the first settlement here, trade was its true lifeblood and had made it wealthy.

 

 

 

Vanimórë pulled his tall grey mount and sumpter pony aside, looking through the gap between turban and veil. A train of camels stepped haughtily past, harness ringing, their drivers veiled against the sun, swaying easily to the rocking gait. After a moment, he touched his booted heels to the stallion's side and rode on.

 

 

 

Domes tiled with copper, bronze and silver burned light back at the cloudless skies. In fountained gardens, veiled women murmured as softly as the fall of the water. Below the palaces, great markets thronged and seethed, and in the dusty, narrow streets of the poor, people worked at their humble trades. To Sud Sicanna, the Great War in the north meant little. The sultan had sent troops, but none had ever returned, and the rumors were that the Great One was overthrown. Since no-one here had ever set eyes on their Overlord, or his land of fire and darkness, this meant less. Sud Sicanna would prosper, as it ever had. Strong walls rolled about the city, but the gates were ever open for Sud Sicanna was an old and painted harlot, welcoming any-one who came with coin or goods. Only the priests in their temples were troubled, their chants rising with the smoke of the burned offerings.

 

 

 

.......................................................

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Terror choked the girl, gripped her throat with hard hands, his hands, throttling her like a strangler. She clutched at it convulsively with flour-dusted fingers, unable to swallow, to breathe. The rising screams in her mind beat against her skull, demanding utterance, promising peace in the madness that would follow. She felt his eyes on her, as if the dark robes she wore were transparent, knew that he was seeing her unclothed. The smell of him, smoke, sweat, sour wine, seemed to crawl into the pores of her skin, the harsh sound as he scratched his groin, whence his thoughts lead him, pricked out flecks of perspiration on her brow.

 

 

 

A block of sunlight slammed into the dim room as the door opened, and rattled shut again behind her mother, leaving it darker than before. It was one of his rules that the doors be kept closed. He seemed to be obsessed with privacy. She felt his eyes slide from her as as the older woman heaved water onto the table with a thump, and he turned, slouching out of the house. A desultory brush of fetid air passed inside, and her stomach roiling, the girl began to knead the rough dough again. She could see only a pale blur through the tears burning in her eyes.

 

 

 

Kalma poured water into a pan and began to slice goat meat, her eyes flicked up to her daughter, before lowering again, lips gripped together.

 

There was nothing she could do.

 

Your husband is your master, her mother had told her long ago, not that any woman of Sud Sicanna need be told that. Please him, obey him. and in a whisper: He is your life, pray to the Lord of the World that you die before he does.

 

That had been only days before she herself had been cast from the house, for her failure to bear a living son. She had slunk away, weeping, and no-one saw her again. Doubtless she had died somewhere in the alleys of the poor quarter.

 

 

 

In this wealthy, corrupt city, widows invariably ended their days dead of hunger, or were stoned or burned alive if some-one accused them of witchery. Women were not permitted power in Sud Sicanna, and did not own property or money. The best a widow could hope for was to be taken in by one of her children, but often they became little more than slaves in such a household, for they would bring no coin with them, and must work to be so kept.

 

 

 

Kalma had still been pretty at the time of her husbands untimely death, and when his brother had said he would take her to wife, she accepted with relief, though she knew him to be a violent man much addicted to date wine. She had no family, save a daughter approaching womanhood. There was no choice, no woman had a choice, and Chafal treated her much as she had expected, but she had a home, a place. And then her daughter had grown, fairer than her mother, who watched mute and helpless as Chafal's gaze lingered on her.

 

 

 

Kalma knew the first time he had taken her. Her stomach had rebelled, anger had bloomed in her, as she saw her child, eyes blasted with shock, crouching over herself as she moved. The girl had had looked at her mother in entreaty, speechlessly begging for help – and Kalma had turned away as if she saw nothing amiss. The anger sputtered out, the flame snuffed by the constant fear of being discarded. Like her mother, Kalma had borne only one girl-child.

 

 

 

There was no-one she could confide in, nothing she or any could do. Bairi, a young wife of who lived nearby, showed concern at the girl's increasing silence, perhaps because she was not much older. Her questions met with short answers. Times were hard for the poor, Kalma said brusquely, it was always so. Thereafter, Bairi would come across the street when Chafal was gone from the house, bringing honey-cakes and her small son took a fancy to the girl and would clamber onto her lap, which brought a faint softening to her pinched face. Kalma, fearing that the girl would utter incautious words, never let her greet Bairi alone. If this were known, they would be thrown out and stoned, called witches, accused of using forbidden arts on Chafal.

 

They might be burned alive.

 

 

 

Bairi's husband, Chulai said that Chafal was no poorer than any other in the quarter. He was a sot, every-one knew it. After his days work was done, he enjoyed drinking, gambling and visiting the brothels. Looking with affection and desire on his vivacious wife, Chulai had said: "Adani is fond of the girl, but do not go when Chafal is there, he has always looked too closely at you. I will break the pig's face if he touches you!"

 

 

 

Kalma would have agreed with Chulai. Sometimes she smelled good wine on Chafal's breath, grape wine, such as the wealthy drank, and she knew he kept a locked chest in his workroom. She had been taking him a mid-day meal once, years ago, and seen him bending over it, glimpsed a flash of silver before he had driven her out with a curse. It was more money than a potter should possess, and Kalma could not guess how he had come by such a horde.

 

He could have dowered the girl for marriage but he would not, begrudging every copper spent on aught but wine and food for his belly. It was too late now. Men wanted virgin brides, and every girl was examined by two older women before marriage. If one was found not to be intact, she would bring dishonor on her father's house. Only if the man responsible came forward, offering to wed, and paying coin to erase the stain, would the girl be saved. Sometimes that happened, but no-one but Chafal had touched Kalma's daughter, and he would raise the cry of 'Witch!' were his lechery ever discovered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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She was pregnant.

 

Her courses were as regular as the moon, and this was the fourth week that she was clean. She had wondered at the wave of sickness that had swept over her when she should have bled, then there had been cramps, but still no blood. Now the nausea was constant, and she had retched several times. Her hands shook with a faint, continuous tremor, unable to be still, touching her throat, her breasts, which were painful and felt swollen.

 

 

 

There were herbs to abort, if one had coin. Sometimes a woman would use them and call it miscarriage, a brief respite from constant childbearing. The whores of the brothels used them, but she had no money, and even if she had, did not know where to buy them. And she could not leave the house. Chafal sent Kalma to the market, and when they were alone, would have her, pushing her over the table, lifting her skirt, his hard hands spreading her legs. He would pound brutally into her, grunting, while she bit into her mouth, whimpering to hold back the screams of disgust and pain, the sickness of feeling him invade her.

 

 

 

"Whore!" he called her, "You bewitched me, slut-eyes. I could take you out into the street and have you stoned as a harlot, burned as a witch. So keep your bitch mouth closed and I will say naught."

 

 

 

Her mother had always known. That first time, in pain, horrified beyond speech, threatened with death if she told any-one, she had looked at the older woman and watched her eyes slide away. The silent screams had begun then, and only death would end them. And she was dying, each time he raped her, a fragment of her was broken.

 

 

 

Now, even Bairi's friendship had been withdrawn. A week ago, her son had vanished while running an errand to the market. He had taken to skipping across the narrow street to see the quiet girl who held him, and sang to him. Chafal, in an unusual display of tolerance, sometimes allowed him to play with some clay, showing him how to keep it damp and malleable. Adani had been in the house before he disappeared. He had left with a coin from the potter, who told him to find Kalma and ask her to bring back wine, the copper was for a sweetmeat, another uncharacteristically generous gesture.

 

 

 

When he had slipped away, Chafal had come to his niece and taken her on the floor, savage and fast, kneading at her breasts so that tears had run down her cheeks, and she sobbed into the palm he clamped over her mouth. Later he had gone out, and returned late to collapse into wine-sodden sleep.

 

 

 

Bairi was hysterical with fear, and blamed Chafal for sending the boy alone to the market. It was known that sometimes children vanished in Sud Sicanna, and there was no recourse. They were the poor, whom no-one cared about save their own families, and sometimes not even they. It was one less mouth to feed, after all. But Adani was the firstborn child and beloved. He had not been taken for sacrifice, for those chosen for the temple were collected with solemn ritual, the priests flanked by acolytes on foot, beating their drums, pausing at houses where weeping women, and sometimes men, watched as their sons or daughters were taken.

 

The fate of those who vanished secretly was unknown, but there were many rumors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The night was warm and windless in the cramped streets of the poor, only in the spacious palaces did a breath of wind from the desert set the wind-chimes singing softly, as if greeting the one who entered the Sultan's palace.

 

 

 

Chafal had gone out at sundown and was not yet returned. The girl lay tense as a slab of stone on her thin pallet, though he had never touched her while her mother was in the house, and if he came back this late would fall asleep at once, open mouth exhaling wine fumes. Her fingers plucked at the rough cover and she wept, her knuckles pressed into her mouth to stifle the sound.

 

 

 

There was only fear now. Since her mother had re-married, there had always been fear of the big, violent man. Everywhere she turned he seemed to be there, narrow eyes on her, lips parted. He told her she had bewitched him, was born a slut, that she wanted him. It was not true, he had always revolted her, but she was disgusted by what he must have seen in her and loathed herself. She wished she were dead, and soon she would be. When his child began to show, he would drag her into the street, denounce her as a harlot, and she would face the condemnation of the people. She had seen it happen: a woman fleeing before a mob until she was surrounded or trapped by an alley or wall, she had heard the thud of the stones, the screams, watched the limp body dragged away, leaving smears of blood. In the oppressive heat she had felt cold and sick at the terror of the pursued woman. Soon that woman would be her; she had imagined it many times, as if to do so would somehow prepare her for the moment – and nothing could. Unless she summoned the resolve to take her own life, she would face the baying crowd, the hurled rocks, feel her bones break, her skull smashed to red pulp...

 

 

 

She had never hoped for much, only to leave this house, leave him. Perhaps her husband would have cared for her, had she married. Chulai loved his wife, it was evident in his voice and expression when he gazed upon her. Not all men could be as Chafal, once they had been merry-eyed, sweet-natured boys like Adani. There might have been some-one like that for her, once. Now there would be no-one. By the time the greater heat came she would be dead.

 

Heaving sobs wracked her and she curled up on the pallet. There was no mercy in their God, but she prayed to him to die now and be lost in the Dark.

 

 

 

The noise roused her from a half-doze. It was far away, like thunder, yet there was no storm and there was distinctive human quality to it, as if great crowds were shouting or screaming. She sat up and a sickness churned in her stomach. Bolting to the latrine she vomited, then groped her way to the kitchen and washed the bile from her mouth. The noise was closer now, and had resolved itself into many people running and crying out. She heard the slap of sandals, the bang of doors and stood limp and exhausted, wondering if the city were under attack, even though such a thing had not happened in living memory. As she shakily lit a tallow dip, she heard her mother's weary question: "What is it?"

 

 

 

The door was smashed inward and the girl stiffened as Chafal reeled through. He looked drunk, she thought, unsurprised, and then she saw the peculiar pallor to his face and wondered if he were not drunk, but ill. He breathed heavily as he lumbered in and bellowed: "Get up, woman! Go for wine!"

 

 

 

Kalma appeared, winding a veil about her face, smudges under her eyes like bruises in the weak light.

 

" What is it, husband? " Her voice was rough with trepidation.

 

 

 

"If you get out, you will hear the news yourself!" He dragged her from the doorway of their room and, pushing a handful of coins into her hand, thrust her out into the street.

 

"Two jugs!" He shouted. "And be quick!"

 

 

 

There were more people running now, voices raised, torches billowing light against the houses, and the girl strained to listen. Chafal kicked the door viciously. She kept her eyes lowered, certain he would approach her, her body clenched in sick anticipation, but after a moment she heard him go through the adjoining door into his workshop.

 

Creeping to the shuttered window, she listened – and heard screaming. Her hands rose to cover her mouth.

 

 

 

"Adani!" It was Bairi. "Adani!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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"Dead," Suhala the Vintner said, as he took the coins, his shop hastily opened despite the hour and doing brisk trade. "And not Uwath alone. Petreh saw - he is sick. Chafal was there." He glanced at Kalma. "Little wonder he needs a drink." He poured himself one and tossed it back, as some-one said: "Is it true then?"

 

 

 

"True enough, Uwath and at least half a score of his court, and there will be more, it is said." Suhala poured more wine and glanced back as the curtain behind the stall moved and his son came out, pallid and ill-looking, just as Chafal had been. Kalma shouldered the just of wine, waiting as the youth took a clay cup and drank, shuddering. More men gathered around, watching. He gulped,shook his head and his face twisted, words spilling out as if he were vomiting them up.

 

"He came...from Mordor..." A deeper quiet descended on the crowd. "The palace guard dragged out Uwath and the others, into the great square..." He passed a shaking hand over his face. "They are calling him the Dark prince, the high servant of the Zigûr.’ A buzz went around, the name was known, but only as something out of legend. “He found children in the palace, and punished Uwath..." Again, he drank, but it seemed no amount of wine could touch his horror. "Uwath, the others...they were spread out on great tables, and tied down and he...he lead his stallion to Uwath and it took him..." Turning away Petreh threw up what he had drunk; he was crying. "The screams, the sounds — I will never stop hearing them."

 

 

 

No wonder Chafal had looked sick, Kalma thought dispassionately.

 

 

 

"He is ruler now, the Great Lord's servant, he said...many things, but that any who touch a child thus will suffer the same fate as Uwath."

 

 

 

One might have expected an outbreak of exclamations, but those gathered were silent, shifting, looking sidelong at one another.

 

 

 

"But Mordor wants our sacrifices, our children," said a puzzled, quiet voice. "It has always been so. What more will this one want?"

 

 

 

"I know not." The youth ducked away into the house and Kalma pushed herself through the crowds. This explained her husband's strangeness, but how came he to be near the palace? Most of the poor had never even seen it, had no occasion to go there.

 

 

 

"But I heard that he was — killed, the the Zigûr,” some-one murmured. "In the great battle against the Men from the sea, and the White Demons..."

 

 

 

"Hush!" Suhala warned. "A God cannot die, fool! Perhaps he sent his servant to test our loyalty?"

 

 

 

"The palace guard are with him, I heard that the son of the Captain was found..."

 

 

 

Kalma hurried away. Chafal would be waiting for his wine, but he had given her too much coin in his hurry. She slipped down an alleyway and knocked upon a narrow door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A bruise stained Kalma's face as she poured the hot tea, and pushed the cup toward her daughter. Chafal had struck her for tardiness, but now he was in his room, guzzling wine in morose, nervous silence. He would drink all night.

 

 

 

"Here," she muttered, and saw the huge, frightened eyes gazing at her, silently pleading for the help Kalma could not give. "Go on now, drink." She turned away, went to the door, but did not dare open it.

 

 

 

Both of them listened to the ululating cries from across the street, Bairi mourning the loss of her son. With a mother's instinct, she was sure that Adani had been one of the children found in the palace.

 

From Chafal's room came the sound of something shattering against the wall.

 

"Tell that whining bitch to shut her mouth!" came his goaded roar. It would go no further than curses. He would not confront Chulai, younger and stronger, and as grief-stricken as his wife.

 

 

 

The warped door was slammed open. Chafal stormed through, half falling against the table, the clay cup spilling most of it's contents over the scrubbed wood. They heard him vomiting noisily in the latrine.

 

 

 

"Go to your bed! " Kalma said harshly, reaching for a rag. She had not been able to buy more than one dose of the poison. Nothing to be done... It would have saved the girl, and saved her. Chafal had not lain with her for a year, soon he would cast her from his house, calling her barren and cursed for losing the two children he had got on her, one stillborn, the other dead of a fever. He would throw her out and and keep the girl. Kalma did not hear herself give a hoarse chuckle. Luck was not with her today, but when had it ever been? Had he come from his room a moment later, the tea would have been drunk. There was nothing to be done, but expose the wench, or wait until Chafal denounce her, claiming her a harlot. How long? Two moons perhaps, until the pregnancy showed, maybe sooner, for the girl was thin. The girl, the girl...Kalma groped for her name, realized she had called her the girl, these two years. She was distancing herself, but her terror-sodden mind did not recognize that fact. With the selfishness of survival, she had begun to withdraw from the moment she had seen rape in the young face, when she had known there was nothing she could do. Now she saw a stranger, a rival.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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~ There had been no message from the palace, but there had been witnesses, and in the domed temple the high priest, roused from his bed, ordered that the great drums begin their sacrificial beat. He rejoiced, as his acolytes robed him in the red and black vestments, for he knew in his heart this was no impostor. Mokar was old, steeped in decades of blood. He had seen powerful men rise and fall and, through those years, had faithfully performed the ancient blood-rites to one greater than these petty men could ever comprehend.

 

Uwath had paid only lip service to Sauron. He sent coin to the temple, and troops to the Great War, but the priest knew he kept children whose bodies, innocent and pure, should be gifted to the Dark Lord. He stinted on worship, and now one had come and shown him what punishment was meted out on those who dared to deny Sauron and his Lord.

 

 

 

At sunset, a child had gone under the flame edged knife, the priests welcoming darkness with a tribute of death to it's master. Long ago there had been more than one paltry offering each day, now there would be many, as was fitting. The blood would run hot into the silver bowls, and be poured out at the feet of the great statue which stared imperiously out over the heads of His servants.

 

 

 

In the bed, his catamite watched, blank eyes staring through a tousled fall of hair. Mokar turned, regarding him thoughtfully. The youth was fair, pleasing, and it was, the priest told himself, one of the few pleasures he allowed himself in a lifetime of service. The boy he had purchased was now a young man, well trained in the arts of the bedchamber, but Mokar’sjuices were dry, and it was rare that even this beauty could bring him to release. He came to the bed, took the firm chin in one dry hand and nodded to the two acolytes who had robed him.

 

 

 

"Bring him," he ordered. "Bring them all. "

 

 

 

He heard the scuffle as he walked as swiftly as his stiff legs would allow, along the narrow passages and out under the temple dome, where the rising smoke of centuries crusted the stone with soot. The torches were lit, splashing flame over the bass-reliefs on the walls, a cat-like eye, repeated over and over. In the pulse of the torches it seemed to observe all that passed here, which was what the priests indeed believed.

 

His knees cracked as he knelt before the statue. It was bronze, of a terrible and terrifying beauty and even Mokar could not look on it for long. He thought he felt the dark approval as the clink of chains reached his ears.

 

 

 

The children were weeping. Under the lash of the short whips the priests wielded, trussed at feet and necks they struggled and wailed. Twenty. Well, it would have to suffice, for now, a gift to the one from Mordor. Dark Prince. Slave of the Zigûr.

 

 

 

The altar was the oldest thing in the temple, older than the statue. Some said it had been used before there was a city here, and it was pitted and black with old blood, which ran down gouged hollows to fill the bowls beneath. Now tightly bound as a fowl for slaughter, his catamite lay breathing in sharp pants, wide eyes begging for aid from something beyond this place — this place which was the true center of everything, Mokar chided silently. There was nothing else. Light flared redly from the dagger as he turned it, intoning ancient chants which overwhelmed the catamite's pleas. Sakkarah was favored, he would serve the King of the World in death as he had served Mokar in life.

 

 

 

Both hands about the hilt, his voice climbing, the drums beating faster, Mokar raised the knife above his head.

 

 

 

The doors crashed inward.

 

 

 

Turning in outrage, Mokar saw the torchlight spark from the armor of soldiers as they ran in, swords drawn. A great horse leaped past them, galloped straight toward the altar, straight at Mokar. The rider's hand brought the stallion back on it's haunches, steel-shod forefeet raking air, before they came down with a clash on the stone.

 

 

 

There was a sword at Mokar's throat, he felt the cold of the blade, saw white teeth show in something that was not a smile. The eyes burned an impossible purple. In their centers a glint of red shone like a distant warning fire, and Mokar knew that his prayers had been answered and Mordor had come to him, to his temple, to reward him — with death. There was a depth of fury emanating from the rider that struck him with the force of a mace. He could not move, arms still held above his head, he croaked: "Lord..."

 

The stranger spoke, but not to him.

 

"Get the children out. Now!"

 

 

 

There was a shirr of air. Mokar felt nothing for a heartbeat, then heard the thump and clatter of his dagger strike the floor. His hands were still clasping the handle. His mouth opened in a scream, and he reeled back, falling against the altar.

 

 

"Melkor does not want them, Man," the steel-hard voice said. "Or if he does, he may not have them. Thou shalt go in their place." And he delicately placed the tip of one sword to the priests groin – and pushed into the artery.

 

 

 

The priests were armed with sacrificial knives and whips, but they were not warriors, and the guards had their orders: Disarm if possible, kill if necessary. The High Priest was to be left for the prince.

 

The people of the city feared the power of the temple, but it had always been there, and the soldiers at first balked at setting foot in this place, hallowed by blood. The stranger who had put Uwath and his councilors to death cut through the fog of ancient fear and smoke with a force as sharp as the twin blades he bore. The sound of the stallion's hooves was shocking, sacrilegious.

 

 

 

"Defiler! The Dark Lord will eat your soul!" screamed one of the priests as Mokar fell, and drew back his dagger, lunging toward the tall, black clad figure. He came to a lurching halt, impaled by one of the slender scimitars.

 

 

 

"He has tried." As the man fell, the stranger strode forward, and drew his sword negligently from the body as he passed it. "Put up or die now. Fools! In this place I am Mordor! "

 

 

 

Something in those biting words reached them. There was the clink of metal striking the floor and the warrior said: "Take them to the palace cells. The children will go the the royal chambers. I will be there shortly."

 

 

 

He turned to the bound youth on the altar, cut the ropes and reached out a hand. With a sobbing exhalation through his teeth, Sakkarah reached out and grasped it. Below him, Mokar was falling into shock as his life-blood soaked his robes and snaked in viscous ribbons toward the feet of the great statue. Sakkarah looked dazedly at the old man who had owned him since childhood, forced him to do things which had sickened him, made him vomit until he had learned to control himself. The rage of relief passed his lips as a groan, and he flung himself toward the dying man, wanting to hurt, to make his passing more painful and ease his unleashed fury and disgust. A hard pair of arms caught him about the waist and locked like iron, a voice murmured in his ear: "I understand, young one. But do not begin thy new life with a violent act. Let him die alone. He served his God — let his God reward him."

 

 

 

Sakkarah fought to release himself, and then fell back, shuddering in convulsive, bitter sobs. He was turned gently, and drawn against his rescuer, who smelled not of the smoke of blood and burned offerings, but of sandalwood and leather, a trace of some light, clean soap.

 

 

 

"Come, come with me, thou art free."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.............................................................................

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The girl sat spinning in a corner of the dusty white yard. It was quiet in the house, for Chafal had scarce been there since the night the Sultan died. When he returned he would stagger to his bed, rising to drink again and go out. He had not entered his workshop, yet yesterday had thrust a silver coin into Kalma's hand and told her to bring back wine. " Good wine, not the goats piss you have been buying me!"

 

 

 

Her fear was a monstrous growth now, threatening to burst through her head, her panicking thoughts slamming up against walls of hopelessness, like a rat running through the alleys. Perhaps — perhaps she could leave, find a brothel, ofter to work there, if they took away the baby, the incestuous seed that seemed to sap her of all strength. No. Chafal used brothels, he would find her and bring her back, and she could not bear the thought of a man within her, on her, sweat and fat and rotten breath in her face. A fierce shudder clawed up her spine and her stomach heaved, she turned aside, hiding her face behind the veil as she spat out the bile that had surged into her mouth.

 

 

 

The ring of horses hooves from the street brought her head about, for it was a rare sound in the poor quarter. She rose, to do something, to stop herself screaming, and went into the house, putting her eyes against one of the warped shutters.

 

 

 

There were five riders, in armor and helms, the hilts of swords jutting at their waists. There was a competent, aloof air about them as they rode, and the people halted and stared, pressing back, for with their full faced helms, they were rendered inhuman, bespeaking authority. One of them carried something before him, and it was only when another dismounted and came to lift the bundle down, that the girl realized it was a child. She saw a fall of soft hair, and then Bairi leaped through her small doorway, stood for a moment with starting eyes and sobbed out her son's name.

 

 

 

She ran across the street, her mouth shaping Adani as Bairi took the boy into her arms. Chulai came out, face creased with disbelieving tears. He listened as the soldier said something to him, quiet and low, and his expression changed, became thunderous, agonized, and he clenched his fists, beating them against his head. The girl's heart dropped into her stomach as Chulai growled: "No, no...!"

 

 

 

"Uwath is dead." The soldier's words were clear, meant to carry. "I witnessed it." In a lower tone, he added, "My own son was found with this child. The Prince has asked that the parents of all children be found, and for us to judge whether they are wanted and will be well treated. If not, they remain at the palace, to be cared for."

 

 

 

His voice became inaudible as he spoke again, but there followed the clink of coins, Chulai's heavy, angry breathing, and more murmurs. The man turned away, mounted and unrolled a scroll, pitching his voice loud, cool, a formal announcement.

 

 

 

"Any person in Sud Sicanna found trafficking in children, abusing them, selling them into prostitution or slavery will be taken to be judged by the prince and put to death by impalement outside the walls, for such will no longer be tolerated. Many servants and lords who served Uwath were found to deal in this crime and will be executed in three days, after the third horn. It is known to him that those who chose the children must have lived in the city and had contacts within the palace. There will be rich reward for any who are named..." He paused then continued: "Many of the palace servants have fled, the Prince thus also requires new servants, who will receive a wage." He rolled the parchment up, while people exclaimed, muttered and shuffled. Palace slaves paid a wage? Who would wish to serve a high servant of the Dark Lord, wage or no? What if the palace slaves had not fled, but been sacrificed, or worse? Speculation was running wild and rampant through the city, and the soldiers lips bent in a faint, ironic smile, as he listened, as if he were aware that the response would be less than enthusiastic.

 

 

 

Chafal's arrival startled Kalma. He pushed her inside reaching for a stone wine jug, tilting it to his mouth. Red ran down into his beard as he swallowed again and again.

 

Kalma twisted her hands, watching the girl, seeing her face shamelessly exposed to the sunlight. She had been thinking and thinking, and to her also the thought of the brothels had occurred. Chafal might take the girl to one, have the babe aborted, and bring her back, with herbs to prevent another pregnancy. He had the coin for it, and the appetite for the little harlot. No-one would question a man discarding his barren wife, and keeping the daughter he was fond of. And she herself would starve to death in the alleys,as her mother had...

 

 

 

The guards were turning, riding back up the street, she watched the girl turn, looking after them. Her face seemed limned with light, shining, the coarse veil slipping back over dark curls of hair. Temptress...of course she had tempted Chafal...

 

 

 

Her voice came out high as a child's as she said: "Husband, it is my duty to tell you that the girl is with child."

 

 

 

He paused, the stone jug held up, his eyes reddening, bulging at her, as she went on: "She has dishonored this house, and I know of no man who has shown an interest in her. Do you? Maybe a demon visited her in her sleep. You keep her so close husband," she hissed. "How else could it happen?"

 

 

 

He barged past her, a strangled sound in his throat, clutched at the frame of the door, and Kalma thought, for a moment that he would do nothing, say nothing. His breath raged in and out of his lungs and then he thrust himself into the street.

 

 

 

"Dishonor!" he bellowed.

 

 

 

The time was upon her and, as her eyes flicked to her mother, she knew whom had told him. Everything contracted around her into one small, white-hot place of horror.

 

 

 

"One I took into my house has dishonored my name!" The ritual words always evoked the same horribly eager silence. Chafal's quivering finger pointed at her. "One I trusted has dragged my name in the sands! Unwed, she has given her body to a man, and carries his seed! I disown her. I condemn her!”

 

 

 

Some-one grasped her, pulled her arms behind her back. She felt hands on her, heard, through the roaring in her ears, her mother's voice, and it was her fingers which pushed up into her, rough and dry, her voice which pronounced that she was no virgin.

 

 

 

For a disjointed heartbeat, now that her terrors had come to pass, she thought it could not be real, the accusatory faces of those about her, walling her in on three sides, the waves of hate that beat at her. She thought she saw Bairi, her expression the only link with what was real.

 

 

 

"Harlot!" some-one spat, and the word stuttered out, cracking against her ears, carrying no meaning. No-one moved. They were waiting, waiting for her to accept her death, or to run.

 

 

 

The women always ran.

 

 

 

A noise rose up from deep within her, an animal sound of pure fear, a high, groan trailing from her lips, lost in the swelling roar that followed her. The street before her, where the dust from the horses hooves still hung, stretched for leagues, the houses each side flung themselves up in blank walls, the brassy sky clamped down over them, forcing her down a long white tunnel. Something struck her back: the first of the stones. She did not hear herself begin to scream.

 

 

 

The last of the guards drew rein, turned his mount, as the noise behind him rolled closer, overlaid by the shrieks of some-one running hard, tearing in breaths to loose them again in sounds of inhuman fear.

 

 

 

"A stoning." Captain Jaisal pulled up.

 

 

 

"I know, " the reply was cold. "I am the law in Sud Sicanna now, Captain. Only I have the power to pronounce death."

 

 

 

She did not see the horses, her eyes were wide and fixed far ahead of her, upon a place of safety which did not exist, and she was scarcely aware of being lifted from the ground. The houses tilted and swung, arms were around her, she was pressed against something hard. Like a trapped animal she jerked and writhed. The arms were bars of steel.

 

 

 

"She goes to the palace to be judged."

 

 

 

Jaisal was thinking fast as he put his horse before the soldier and the struggling girl.

 

"The right to judge is the new Prince's alone!" he shouted.

 

 

The crowd balked, heaving and dangerous.

 

"She is a harlot!" A woman screamed, shrill and hoarse. "A slut, with child in her belly and no husband!"

 

 

 

"She will be judged by the Prince! It is his command!"

 

 

 

The roar of outrage was bestial. The soldiers drew their swords and Jaisal cried: "Uwath himself was put to death, raped by a war-horse, others are to be executed soon. Does any-one here wish to join them?”

 

 

 

The voices subsided into angry murmurs, but the girl did not hear. Pain was gripping her lower belly with two fists, grinding into her, she tried to bend over it, gagging, as nausea brought chill perspiration springing through her pores. Close to her, a voice said something, and she was aware of movement, a jolt that sent a spear of agony up through her stomach. She was falling through the arms that held her, falling into freedom, into the comforting embrace of death. ~

 

 

 

 

 

.................................................................................

 


	2. ~ The Place of Women ~

The Place of Women.

 

 

 

~ She was reluctant to emerge from the cocoon of sleep. To wake was to face another day of fear and pain. As if her mind had conjured it, she felt it in her stomach, but the griping drag had faded to a muted ache. She breathed carefully, her eyes still closed and heard, somewhere, the gentle, ceaseless fall of water, the piping of a bird. Further away, a peacock shrieked. There were scents: roses, jasmine, incense. She wondered drowsily, not truly caring, if she were dead, but death was supposed to be a place of black heat and slavery. Her mouth was dry, with a bitter taste on her tongue, and she was thirsty.

 

Slowly, she opened her eyes. A room opened and rose about her, arches of lacy stone steepled their fingers together, a mist of color moved, a great swathe of silk, shimmering in a fitful breeze. Through the archway she saw water, a fountain playing. All was light and beauty, the coverlet under her fingers was embroidered with gold.

 

"At last you wake, child."

 

A woman was sitting beside the bed. She had a strong face with a fine blade of a nose, thin lips, kohl-rimmed eyes. Her veil was not coarse homespun, but a brilliant blue, bordered with silver, and her hair was tinted a glossy black. A few deep lines creased the skin about her eyes and bracketed her mouth. She was probably older than Kalma, but wore her years proudly. Gold tinkled as she moved.

 

"Where am I?" The words came out in a whisper.

 

"You are safe in the palace." The woman turned to pour from a silver jug. It was orange juice, cool and sweet. "What is your name, child?" Long, beringed hands took the goblet away when the girl had drunk.

 

"Jehana, mistress."

 

"I am Zadina. Food will be brought soon, you will still feel tired, we gave you poppy." Sitting back on large cushions, the woman went on: "You were with child, and lost much blood, but you will heal with good food and rest."

 

"I...was...?"

 

"I am sorry, child, you miscarried."

 

Tears blurred Jehana's vision. She felt the slide of them down her face, then Zadina's arms drew her close, holding her as she wept. She smelled of orange-blossom and spices. The relief was overwhelming. She had taken no joy in the bastard seed growing within her, had imagined it as a monster, with his face, his eyes, and she hated herself for feeling it.

 

"I am the Mistress of the Women. I think we will be friends."

 

A little while after, a slave entered bearing a tray. The broth was spicy and filling, and after eating, Jehana slept again. When she woke, she was alone and the light showed her that the sun had just risen. There was a sense of serenity and quiet here she had never known before, no sound but the tuneful song of pouring water and birds. She wondered if she was dreaming, but her dreams had never brought her to such a place of peace and opulent beauty. As she pushed herself up there came a patter of feet and a young girl appeared under the archway, calling: "Mistress!"

 

Zadina, in a long, silk gown, her hair loose, came into the room and she and the slave-girl lead Jehana into a bathing chamber where scented steam curled from a great sunken bath. She was embarrassed at the thought of disrobing, but Zadina was efficient and matter-of-fact. The warmth, the strange delight at the soft soap on her skin, the woman's strong fingers massaging her scalp, were all sensations of reassurance. Zadinas solid, wet, unselfconscious body, her soft humming, combined to give the girl a feeling of being cared for. She did not, for the moment, wish to think, only bask in these feelings, as strange to her as these surroundings.

 

"The bleeding is better," Zadina announced with satisfaction as she dried Jehana, combed her hair and settled a long gown of pale yellow about her. It whispered over her clean skin like a cool breeze.

"But you are still weak. You must rest and sleep again." She clapped her hands and food was brought in, and now Jehana was genuinely hungry. Curiosity was raising it's head within her, and she said, shyly, as she lay back in the bed: "Mistress? Why am I here?"

 

Zadina raised a plucked brow, smiling. "The prince brought you here."

 

"But I heard that he is from...Mordor?" Jehana's voice quavered. "I was to be...s-stoned..."

 

"You will not be stoned, child." Zadina assured her swiftly. "As for our prince, he is a high servant of the Lord of Mordor. The Dark Prince, they call him. Old tales.” She patted one of the thin, tense hands that clutched the silk. "You must have heard of the Great War, away in the north? The Lord Zigûr, so the prince says, has gone into distant parts to recoup his strength. In time, he will return to his land. The prince has been sent to our city."

 

"But, Mistress, why would he bring me here? I was condemned..." A shudder siezed Jehana as she remembered her mindless terror, hurled stones striking her back, her legs...

 

Zadina's lips pressed together.

"You are not condemned under his laws. He is strange, and powerful, but he is not Uwath." Her voice lowered, then came hot and fast. "Five and thirty years I have been here, and every one of those since Uwath took the city, I wished that an Assassin would slip in and kill him, that he would die of the pox, or his heart would burst. He was filth! We knew his appetites! There were rumors of what he did to children. This one, this prince from Mordor, killed him and those who ran with him in one night, and I watched as he had Uwath raped by his war-horse, and I rejoiced! " Her eyes flashed. "The prince came to the seraglio and told us that none of us need fear, that we would not be discarded nor forced. They are calling him a White Demon, Lichtloth, but if he is, then I would cast myself at the feet of that demon! You are here because you needed help, because, he has said, his laws will be different."

 

Tears sprang up in Jehana's eyes, easy tears of relief and reaction. "I do not understand..."

 

Zadina drew herself to her feet. "There is much, much we do not know about this new prince, but what I do know is that there is no fear among the women – or the youths. You are safe."

 

Safe... Jehana shook her head, disbelieving.

 

"You are safe," Zadina repeated. "As am I and my ladies. And that it is hard for me to believe, also."

 

She had seen so many come to the palace, girls and young women, youths, some proud of their beauty, wearing a pathetic arrogance which would soon be shattered by usage, others in bleak despair, or fear. She had seen them harden over the years, fight like cats to preserve their places against new competition, seen them weep, drink themselves into idle stupors and languish, forgotten. She had seen them miscarry, and abort, seen them die, seen the clearances, when the older ones were marched out of the palace gates. Some would be stoned, others vanish into brothels where the men who lusted after these relics of the seraglio and hated them for their harlotry would brutalize them. All would die.

 

The seraglio was a luxurious prison, filled with intrigue and too many frustrated, childless women, and yet those women had become Zadina's daughters. Her cleverness, her calmness, her hard-earned experience, had taught and comforted many, and seen her escape the fate of her contemporaries to become the Mistress of the Women. She felt a fierce protectiveness for this child. Her own father had sold her when she was fourteen, and she had been brought by caravan from Sudu Cull to Sud Sicanna, sold in the slave market, purchased by the Sultan's Chief Buyer.

Uwath had not been ruler then, but when he came to power, through poison and treachery, he had kept many of the women. A man of huge and unwholesome appetites, she had watched him grow more gross, more corrupt. The night he had died so terribly, she had shared wine with the women, while they clustered about her, wondering what would happen to them.

 

The child clung to her hands, gulping unintelligibly: "I am...not a harlot, mistress!"

 

Zadina felt herself shake with anger. "Indeed you are no harlot child! Be at peace. No-one will touch you here. I will be close by, but the prince has summoned me. Lula will watch over you, she is my body slave. No-one will enter these chambers to disturb you. Sleep."

 

She watched as Jehana lay back, her face tear-stained, frightened, so very young. Weariness drew her down into sleep soon enough. Zadina walked to the balcony, looked through the stone lacework of the screen, a frown driving a vertical line down her brow, as she considered the last days.

 

No woman in the seraglio had lived through a change of ruler, save Zadina alone. She told them, as dispassionately as possible, that when Uwath – may he scream in the dark for eternity! – had become Sultan, he had ordered the women brought before him and chosen those he would keep. Perhaps the new prince would do the same. Her words resulted in a flurry of activity, bathing, face painting and dressing of hair, and some scuffles over gowns and jewels. It had taken all of her considerable authority to prevent panic, since the words ran through the palace that the one who had come was a demon who served the Zigûr, yet to be dismissed was a sentence of death. Their only hope was to hope he had the lusts of a man, and thus they must impress him.

 

Zadina's position allowed her to leave the seraglio, but she had not been able to obtain a close look at the new prince. In the legends of the desert, demons were things of claws, fangs and flame, or spirits that traveled on the wind and battened upon the living in darkness. This seemed to her to be only a tall man, clad in black, a horse-tail of jet hair rippling to his knees. His arms were bare and the flesh was white under sweeping, black tattoos. A demon? She did not glimpse his face, she was transfixed with both horror and satisfaction as she watched Uwath, who had killed so many children, die screaming. She believed demons could inhabit the bodies of men, and to her, Uwath had been a demon, what this new ruler was, she did not yet know, save that he had meted out justice.

 

It was possible, of course, that he did this simply to clear the court and quash any incipient rebellion against him. She had searched for people to speak to, but the palace was in an uproar, slaves and nobles running like frightened chickens. Too many had had some hand in supplying the Sultan with children. The eunuch in charge of the young men had likewise fled, and the youths were as perturbed and anxious as the women. They were all equally as helpless, trained for bedworthiness, to dance, sing, to look beautiful; none of them could make their own way in the world beyond their stone-lace screens and hidden gardens. If they left the palace they would but set the term of their own deaths.

 

It was in the midst of the growing alarum that he entered the great chamber.

A movement caught Zadina's eye and she stiffened as he walked in, for he came from the walled gardens and no-one might enter that way. They were guarded, and it was death for any-one save the Sultan to look on the women. A man with a rope and grappling hooks might scale the walls, but if they did, they had to cross the parapet where guards patrolled, and anyway, this was deep within the palace, an interloper would find it well nigh impossible to breach the courts and lawns and towers which surrounded these rooms.

 

Even as she froze in astonishment, he stepped into the light and she knew who the intruder was, recognized his height, the tattoos which slashed and curled down his arms, the way he moved, predatory and graceful. And now she could see his face.

 

One of the women screamed, there was a scatter and scurry, swirls of silk and long hair. Zadina went down on her knees and bent her head to the floor. The women, seeing this, followed her example, folding gracefully into submissive poses.

 

His face was branded in Zadina's mind as her forehead touched the marble. It was carved out of whiteness, a death mask of alabaster, sleek black brows winging up over eyes of dark amethyst. He was fiercely, dangerously beautiful. Perhaps he was no demon, but he was no Man, either.

 

She heard no sound of footsteps, and his voice made her start as it said, close to her, in the rich, unfamiliar accent she had heard as he spoke to the crowds earlier: "Rise, all of thee."

 

With rustles of silk, the bowed garden of flowers straightened, heads still lowered.

 

"Thou art mistress here?"

 

Zadina looked up, felt those eyes like heat across her skin. Lightheaded, her voice higher than was her wont, she nodded.

"I am, Lord."

 

She resisted an impulse to stare. His skin was white, grainless as a babes. The mouth was scrolled and beautifully shaped, the lashes black, heavy as feathers.

 

"Ladies," he glanced over them, "Go to thy couches. Fear not, none of thee shall be dismissed." A whisper of relief shivered through the room like a breeze. "Who looks to the youths?"

 

"Kenfiri, lord. But I heard he is...gone."

 

"Then I will appoint some-one else. I go to see them now," he gestured. "It has been a long night, to thy beds, all of thee. I will send for thee in a few days, Zadina."

 

As he left, she stood motionless, before the women gathered about her, all chattering at once, eyes wide and blazing.

 

"Who is he?"

 

"Did you see his eyes?"

 

"I saw other things." From bold, laughing Fhara, reaping a harvest of hysterical giggles.

 

"He is from Mordor? " Came from the tall Uma, she of the blue-black skin and close cropped hair. Her question held disbelief.

 

"He is Edhel."

 

Zadina looked across at the fair skinned, grey eyed woman called Sharia in the seraglio, but once, in Umbar, her name had been Lôminzil. She was of the blood of the mighty Men of the Sea, those of that race called Black Númenoreans. Now she folded her arms, and her face was flushed, eyes glittery. None of them understood the word, and she smiled, faintly patronizing.

"Lichtloth." At the babble of questions, she said: "Did you not see his height, his skin, his ears?" She touched her own. "I was told tales of the Elves when I was young. But they were ever enemies of Mordor."

 

"This one is no enemy of Mordor, Sharia," Zadina told her. "He has said that he was sent here by the Lord Sauron. That he is his mightiest servant.”

 

The other woman shrugged elegantly. "I have forgotten some of the old tales, but he is what you call Lichtloth Mistress. There is no doubt. He is not Mortal."

 

Through her own burning curiosity, Zadina said briskly: "All that need concern us is that he has said you will not be discarded, that he is your new lord, and Uwath is dead. We all need rest, and if you wish to look your best for him, you will go to your couches now." She clapped her hands and the women drifted away to their bedchambers, chattering together. When the room was empty, she stood for a moment, her hands clasped at her breast and breathed a prayer of thanks to any God or Goddess who might hearken to her.

 

The next morning, the women slept late, as was usual. Their lives revolved around the night and many would not rise until noon. Zadina herself was awake soon after dawn and found that beyond the isolated peace of the seraglio, the palace still hummed. Mentally she tallied whom had fled the evening before. Most were body slaves, expensive and valuable, leaving the lowest, those who cleaned and cooked, tended the gardens. The palace guard were much in evidence, but they knew her and none stopped her. At last she found a flustered Aan Marzuk, who had been the young assistant of the overseer.

Aan had come here a year ago, purchased for the male seraglio, but wily Barshon had somehow detached him for his own use, for the youth could read, write and knew figures. Now Aan looked bemused and stunned as he walked down the hall, clutching a sheaf of papers to his chest, and seemed almost as relieved to see Zadina as she was to find him.

 

"I am to oversee the palace slaves," he told her, his soft voice bewildered, as well he might for the palace slaves included every-one from the odalisques to the cleaners of the latrines.

 

"That will be an improvement on Barshon," she murmured. "You are clever, Aan, you know how he worked."

 

"He did not work," the young man snapped, hate in his dark eyes. "Yes, mistress, I know, but we replace or acquire slaves from the slave markets, and the prince has said this will not be done, we will announce that slaves are needed in the palace, and I must see those who come and appoint them for positions I deem them best suited to. I think we have lost almost two hundred slaves, mistress!"

 

Zadina shook her head. "I do not understand. He wished people to come here of their own choice?"

 

"Yes, and pay them a wage. All the slaves are to be paid a sum of coin each night of the new moon! Criers will go out into the city this morning." And I do not know what to do. The appeal in his face was clear as a shout.

 

Zadina considered. "We have the cooks and the cleaners, the gardeners, they can continue with their work."

 

"Yes," he said doubtfully.

 

"Would you like to read the list you will make to me?" she offered. "You can decide what positions most need to be filled." He was a young man and confused, yet he was a man, and his pride would not allow him to be advised by a woman unless, in his mind, he called it by another name.

 

His smile was pure relief. Few knew more about the workings of the palace than this woman. And he would never forget that after the first rough, terrible time when Uwath had taken him, she had been waiting in the shadows as he was lead from the room, had slipped a pot of soothing unguent into his hand. The guard with him had been Jaisal, and he had pretended to see nothing.

 

"The Prince will be appointing his own councilors," he said, as he nervously cracked open a purple seal. "Excuse me mistress, he told me to look at this after I left him."

 

He unfolded the vellum and went so still that Zadina said sharply: "What is it, Aan?"

 

He lifted his eyes, dazed and glossy with tears, and reached out his hand.

Zadina had not been able to read when she first came here, but she had learned from the old Mistress of the Woman, and it had been useful to her. The hand was flowing, aggressive, and signed at the bottom, Vanimórë, Prince of Sud Sicanna.

It was a letter of manumission.

 

 

 

~~~

 

 

 

Zadina sat watching the girl sleep, her dark curls drying on the silks. It was a piquant face, half-girl, half woman, and behind it, her will to live had almost been snuffed out. This was no harlot, this was a child who had suffered. When she had been carried here, and was methodically stripped, her clothes had been spotted with bright blood. Zadina had seen this before, what startled her was the prince's apparent knowledge of such matters. It was not customary for any man to know about the mysteries of the female body, unless they were a physician. Zadina had sent for herbs and they had got the girl to swallow a mixture in wine and honey which had dropped her into a deep sleep. She had slept through the night and day, not truly waking when more of the potion was held to her lips. Sleep was the best thing for her, and with rest and good food she would heal.

 

And what of the one who had condemned her? Without her asking, and with a look like iron in his face, the prince had said, he would be called to the palace to testify.

 

At that Zadina's heart plunged, for surely the girl would be found guilty. She had been with child, she had been unwed, by the laws she was guilty of harlotry and dishonoring her father's house. It had always been so.

 

"The laws are wrong," the prince said calmly, as if he read her thoughts. "I will make new ones."

 

Zadina thought of the executions taking place this day outside the north gate. The nobles of the city would wait, she judged, after all, the usurping of power was common enough in Sud Sicanna. They cared only for money and political influence, and many positions in the court were now open. Yet how long would it be before the prince was assassinated? There were many powerful people guiltless of colluding with Uwath, who had hated him, yet would not wish to be ruled by a stranger if he truly intended to change the laws. Zadina did not want him to die, Lichtloth or demon, or servant of Mordor, there was that about him which made her feel as a child, protected by a strong father, as if no-one could harm her. She cursed herself for a fool. She knew better. No man was to be trusted.

 

 

 

~~~


	3. A Finger on the Pulse of Consipracy

 

 

 

 

 

 

~ The room was windowless, and the only light came from lamps. The men who sat about the table glittered, bedizened with silk and jewels. All were merchant princes, the wealthiest and most powerful men in the city.

 

 

 

"I advise caution," One of them spoke after a long silence.

 

 

 

"Is he cautious, Bradhi? He came here alone, with no escort, no soldiers, no slaves, and within hours Uwath was dead, his Treasurer, the Chief Adviser, most of his advisers...How? How can one man do that?"

 

Bradhi's smile was ironic. "I will not mourn the pig, Uwath. His death has opened many doors to us. As to how one man alone managed to rid us of most of our rivals...I have been thinking of that, also. And he is clearly not a Man. Who has not heard of the Dark Prince? He has served the Lord Zigûr for years uncounted.”

 

Prince Sharak, whose father had moved his business here from Khibul in the west, shot his forearms with a jingle of gold bracelets.

 

"Do we believe that he is truly come from Mordor?” he asked. "The Men of the Sea and their allies the Lichtloth defeated the Zigûr, at least,” he ammended, ‘Temporarily. This is no hearsay, none of our warriors returned, and I have heard the same news of defeat from Maresh, Borshiva and Sudu Cull. A great defeat! And this one claims to come from Mordor, yet enters the sacred temple and slays the high priest?" He glanced about the table. "Am I the only one to find this an odd thing for a servant of the Zigûr to do?"

 

"And he goes unpunished. Perhaps the Great One has indeed been destroyed?" Another suggested.

 

Sharak made the sign of protection. "A god cannot die."

 

"Something else occurs to me," Bradhi murmured. "Whom of us has seen the Zigûr? We know the legends, that he can change his form, it is said that he walked among the Lichtloth in a form like unto theirs...” He let the last words hang on the air.

 

The others about the table appeared shaken.

 

"You cannot think that he is the Lord Zigûr? " Prince Imath whispered.

 

"Who else could come here alone and sieze power, kill the high priest, arrest the acolytes and remain untouched? Perhaps they displeased Him? Or perhaps he is a demon who served the Zigûr and fled from Mordor?" Bradhi reached for wine. "I suggest we not pay gold to an assassin, unless we wish to end as Uwath did. I council that we wait." A smile touched his mouth. "Some-one will try to have him killed. Let us see what happens. In any event. He is acting wisely. He has opened the coffers to build an army, raised the wages paid to each soldier and city guard. Already young men are flocking to the barracks. We lost half the army to the Great War, and Sud Sicanna is a very rich prize, my friends."

 

The men raised their goblets and nodded. "We wait," Sharak agreed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~~~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He did not know why he was here. These chambers were more splendid than anything he had ever seen, and below were gardens, quiet and beautiful, where, at dawn and dusk, slaves would rake the white paths, tend the flowers, water the grass. He had scarcely seen the sky in the temple, save when he was part of the solemn procession which entered the city and brought back children for sacrifice. The scent of roses and jasmine was soporific, the long pools of water lay cool and green as slabs of tinted glass. There was no ever-present stink of blood and smoke.

 

 

For the first two days he did not move from the couch, drinking the juice and honeyed wine brought to him by a slave, unable to believe Mokar was gone.

 

On the third day, he came, the one who had entered the temple and saved him, and the youth lowered himself swiftly to his knees, braced against what must come.

 

 

"Rise, Sakkarah."

 

 

Obediently, he came to his feet, and felt his chin cupped and raised. He kept his eyes lowered, until the lilting voice said: "Look at me."

 

 

His eyes met the brilliant violet ones, and flinched away. He had both loathed and feared Mokar, but to compare him to this one, was to compare a dying candle to the suns blaze.

 

 

"I do not rape children.” His voice was stern, and Sakkarah's eyes rose again, perplexed. A slave could not be raped. They existed to please their masters.

 

"If thou art unwilling, it is rape," there was a banked blaze in the eyes. "Come," he gestured to a long couch. "Pour us both wine."

 

 

Only his years of training allowed the young man to pour from the jug without spilling. He offered the goblet with a bow, clamping his fingers tight about his own.

 

 

"Sit. Drink."

 

 

The wine steadied Sakkarah a little. he wished he could drain the cup, but dared not.

 

 

"Thou art not of the city."

 

 

"No, Master." The antique language did not sound strange to Sakkarah. The ritual chants and rites of the temple were spoken in such a fashion.

 

 

"Not master, lord, " the prince corrected. "Where wert thou born?"

 

 

"In Isfahan, lord," he hesitated. "It lies to the south."

 

 

"I know it. The desert there ends in hills, and deep valleys. A green land."

 

 

"Yes, lord."

 

 

"Wouldst thou return there?"

 

 

"No, lord," Sakkarah's mouth was dry, he drank again.

 

 

"Tell me," the prince sat back.

 

 

"I was..." He hesitated, and at the infinitesimal nod, continued, " I was the youngest, lord. We were goat-herders. When my father died, my eldest brother sold me to a slave caravan heading north." The bitterness was still there after seven years. It had never faded, the betrayal, the fear, the horror which he had learned to conceal, the disgust at himself. He finished the wine without thinking, felt himself shaking. The cup was refilled again, and he looked up, feeling a not unpleasant numbness drift over his mind.

 

 

"I will set thee free. But what wouldst thou do?"

 

 

"What can I do, lord?" The face he looked at seemed to glow with inner light. It exploded through the eyes in fiery, vivid color. "I can suck you, milk you with my mouth, kneel before you and you can take me, I know how to please, lord." His cheeks were hot, the pale wine swung and lipped against the rim of the goblet. He raised it to his mouth and swallowed quickly. "That is all I know."

 

 

The prince did not answer, but Sakkarah felt the wave of emotion which burned from him. Under the carven face was a vast, deep anger and the youth was afraid - terrified - that he had said too much, had offended and would be slain or thrown out into the city.

 

He did not see the other rise, the movement was fast as an uncoiling serpent. Long hands came to rest on his shoulders, and the prince murmured: "Yes, and I know also, young one." At the surprising gentleness, Sakkarah felt tears force their way into his throat, fill his eyes, and he sought to dam them behind his lashes.

 

 

"What wouldst thou be, if thou hadst thy desire?"

 

 

Sakkarah remembered with horror his helplessness in the temple, saw again this prince, astride the great horse, slender swords flashing in torchlight, his expression of contempt, the utter disregard of his blasphemous act...

 

"Lord, I would be a warrior."

 

 

"Then I will teach thee to be a warrior, Sakkarah."

 

 

The fragile wall crumbled as tears dissolved it like sand. Sakkarah found himself drawn against the hard chest, and held, as he sobbed for the child he had been, and with shocked and grateful relief.

 

 

The wine, the tears, spun him into sleep, there on the couch, cradled against the new prince of Sud Sicanna. He did not feel himself carried to the bed, his limbs disposed, or the fingers which softly combed through his hair. He did not hear the sigh from one who did indeed know exactly what his life had been. Sakkarah was oblivious, tears drying on his face, sleeping as he had not slept since before his innocence was ripped away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~~~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The feast was unlike any other that the men had been invited to during Uwath's rule. The former Sultan had hired nubile young girls and boys from pleasure-houses to provide sport for himself and his favored guests, for his seraglio might not be seen by any but himself.

 

 

At first Bradhi thought that the women and youths seated before low tables had indeed been brought from brothels, for the women were unveiled, and only whores exposed their hair and faces. A second glanced confused him. Even the most expensive prostitutes earned nothing for themselves, their robes were tawdry, their jewels fashioned of tinted glass or copper. The cloth of silver and gold, and the magnificent gems on display here were real, or he had lost his judgment. A woman in blue and black sat close to the new ruler, handsome and composed. She was older than the others, her colors denoting her rank as Mistress of the Women.

 

 

Bradhi considered himself a civilized man. He was not close-fisted with the coin he allowed his own seraglio, but if these women were indeed the new prince's own, they were being displayed openly, and robed as richly as noblewomen. It was unheard of. When they rose, they did not go down on their knees, but bowed from the waist. An insult, he wondered? It was impossible to read anything in the princes face, but he fancied there was a glint of amusement in the eyes.

 

 

Slaves came forward on silent feet to serve wine and food, the sound of pipes came from behind a curtain where musicians played. Bradhi glanced once at Sharak, and told over the other guests, but found his eyes returning to the prince. The beautiful face was carved hard as the head of a statue, the purple eyes, the somber black garb the slashing tattoos were barbaric and unearthly. He was very tall, taller than any man Bradhi had ever seen, and more dangerous, it emanated from him even as he sat in apparent relaxation, sipping from a goblet, and eating little. No-one spoke, for he had not. All were waiting, too clever, too cautious to break the silence. At last, the prince gestured to a slave, who came forward with a bowl. He dipped long fingers in, laved them and dried them delicately on a cloth.

 

 

"Princes and lords of the city," his voice held a mellow, foreign lilt that Bradhi could not place. "It has come to my attention that some of thee believe I may be the Lord Zigûr.”

 

 

Bradhi stilled, the fruit he had eaten feeling like a rock in his throat. He resisted the temptation to look at the other men present at the secret meeting, and with a feeling of the ground giving way under his feet, he heard the prince continue: "We know the legends, that he can change his form, it is said that he walked among the Lichtloth in a form like unto theirs." His words, his exact words! Which one of his so-called friends had betrayed him? The room was silent as a rock-cut tomb.

 

 

"I suggest we not pay gold to an assassin - unless we wish to end as Uwath did. I council that we wait."

 

 

Bradhi's eyes were nailed to the prince, his blood leaping hard in his ears. He saw the faint smile.

 

"Very wise." The prince rose, dropping the cloth on the table. "Would that all were. I punish treachery, my lords, but this city can be governed so much better with the co-operation of all its most powerful and wealthy lords. Come, let us repair to the garden."

 

 

He strolled to the balcony, Bradhi exchanged a look with Sharak and they followed.

 

 

The prince walked alone. Any of them could have put a dagger in his back in a heartbeat, but the soldiers standing at intervals in the fragrant shadows bore short bows and swords. It was unlikely all of them could be bribed, Bradhi thought, glancing at their burnished breastplates, their upright posture. In so short a time, they too had changed, they appeared more martial, sterner.

 

 

He looked ahead. The prince had vanished and as he halted, puzzled, a voice spoke beside him, and he stifled a gasp. "I think we civilized people can work well together. What sayest thou?"

 

 

"I am in complete agreement, my lord."

 

 

There was no threat in the atmosphere. Behind them, the young men and women of the seraglio murmured as they disposed themselves on benches under alcoves or about the pools and fountains. Dancers floated out, the musicians began to play again. The wine was plenteous, sweetmeats of dates and chopped nuts and dishes of glazed fruit were set beside each guest, and gradually they began to relax, speaking to one another of business, trade, the gossip of the city. Bradhi and Sharak alone remained sober and alert. There was no hint here that this stranger had usurped the throne, killed the sultan and others of the court in a hideous fashion. There was awe in the women and young men of the seraglio, but no fear, and their laughter punctuated the air in blossoms of mirth. Their gestures, their smokey eyes, were flirtatious. They were permitted to take liberties, it seemed.

 

 

"He allows his women great license," Sharak observed in an undervoice.

 

"His ways are not ours," Bradhi replied, biting into a sweetmeat. "And I was never an advocate of cruelty toward my courtesans, as you know.

 

"Very true, my friend, neither am I, and just as well I think.”

 

There was no warning. The assassin was fast and skilled.

 

The servants were ubiquitous, dressed alike in striped red and white robes, and went about their duties unnoticed. There was no need to slink in the shadows. The shortage of slaves in the palace after Uwath's death, the announcement that wages would be paid, had, after an initial pause, resulted in an influx of fathers bringing their children, mostly young and undowered daughters, to the palace, in effect, selling them into bondage. They were given gold and went away satisfied, unaware of the fact that the slaves would continue to be paid and belonged now to the prince. A few were older and simply desperate, or opportunists who knew the fabled wealth of the Sultans of Sud Sicanna.

 

The new prince was careless, thought Bradhi. Or very arrogant.

 

The assassin's movement was fast and fluid. He placed a tray upon the ground, bowed and straightened, passing the prince, ostensibly to attend to another duty. One hand slipped smoothly into the cloth which belted his waist, and drew out a narrow dagger. It would be thin, Bradhi knew, and long, to pierce clean and easy and be as quickly withdrawn. A man might pass another in the street and knife him, walking away and blending into the crowds before the victim felt his lifeblood leaving him. Of course, it was unlikely this assassin would escape. It was rare for them to suicide, unless there was no other way, but this attempt was deliberately open, and none of the brotherhood would be caught alive, lest they be tortured into revealing their leader.

 

 

Bradhi would have missed it had he not been watching the prince so intently. He saw the practiced thrust – and it's violent arrest. The slave was stiff, straining silently against a hold on his wrist that he could not break. There was a bitten-off cry of pain. The dagger fell and so did the assassin, his feet taken out from under him. A foot was planted on his neck.

 

 

The laughter and music faltered. The dancers wavered like butterflies and stilled, and the guests surged to their feet in shocked silence. Soldiers ran forward.

 

"Bring him." The prince swept up the knife and spun it, then with a charming smile: "I regret the interruption, my lords. But perhaps thou wilt join me? I have some questions to ask him."

 

 

 

A hundred years ago, one of the Sultans had built a small pleasure house in the the gardens, a place he might retire with his favorites. Bradhi glanced back and saw guards closing in behind them. This invitation was to be enforced.

 

 

The room was circular, and high windows. The white walls were taesseraed in images of leaves and flowers. A small fountain played, torchiéres burned, and a great bed dominated in the center of the chamber. The captured man lay upon it and Jaisal jerked the knots about his wrists tight, then stepped back, saluting.

 

 

"There are some thing I would rather the ladies not witness," the prince said.

 

 

"Lord, you should kill him now," Dbal spoke up, his voice seeming over-loud in the room. "Show his corpse in the Great Square! He is of the Dark Sons. It is said they never speak, even under torture."

 

 

Fool! Bradhi thought, with a contemptuous glance at the man, whose forehead was beaded with sweat. Fool to say anything!

 

"I will tell you nothing!" the prisoner hissed, evidently agreeing with Dbal's assessment.

 

 

"Indeed, thou wilt tell me nothing," the prince murmured, looking down at the man. "For I will tell thee. This task was given thee because thou art considered the most skilled son of thy father."

 

 

The assassin stiffened.

 

 

"I know the name of thy father. Shall I speak it?"

 

 

The assassin writhed, his eyes held fear now. His tongue touched the corner of his mouth. "You cannot know it! You are bluffing!"

 

 

"Is it not the greatest betrayal, for which there is no forgiveness, for one of thee to speak the name of the Dark Wolf?"

 

 

"You cannot know it!" It was a desperate cry.

 

 

"I see it in thy mind clear as a potters mark on clay. I see his face, I know who he is."

 

 

"No...no!"

 

 

"Tell me the name of he who paid for the attempt on my life."

 

 

"We are not told who hires us!"

 

 

"Thou knowest, Achirion. This time was rather... different was it not? Thy father gave thee names, which were to be spoken in the event of one saying this to thee: Dhana, naira aili, Achirion."

 

 

And now there was no sound in the white room. Those there had stopped breathing. Mother bids thee, speak. "What did the Wolf tell thee to say if any spoke those words to thee?"

 

 

The assassin lay still, his eyes wide, his throat moving as he swallowed convulsively. Then he whispered: "My lord, I was to speak the names of those who approached the brotherhood, who paid to have you assassinated. Those were my orders from the Wolf."

 

 

The men moved without warning. Bradhi watched, transfixed as Dbal, Imath and Jamai, all of them wealthy, all powerful, and all driven to desperate measures, attacked. A knife spun through the air, and Bradhi watched the prince's hand snap out and catch the hilt. Now he held two in either hand. He took three steps back, then propelled himself forward and leaped, somersaulting the bed neat as an acrobat to come down in the midst of the traitors. Four men staggered back, Dbal, his mouth agape, turned, hands reaching out as blood pumped from a severed vein. Warmth sprayed across Bradhi's face. Dbal tottered and fell, the others died at the sword of the guards.

 

None of the others moved. As if nothing had happened, the prince moved to the assassin on the bed.

 

"Their names are hardly necessary now, Achiron. Yet speak them."

 

 

"Dbal an Abra, Imath an Jaal, and Jamai an Khelid, my lord."

 

"So pleasant to be proven right, no?" With swift movements the mans bonds were cut and he sat up, carefully rubbing his wrists and hands. "Thou didst do well. Go now. My soldiers have orders to let thee pass."

 

 

Sharak's voice was hoarse: "My lord, you approached the Dark Wolf? You knew these men had betrayed you?"

 

 

"I offered more than they did," the Prince nodded to the door. "It has been a most instructive evening, has it not?"

 

 

As he passed, Bradhi heard the precisely formed words in his mind which had so alarmed him on first hearing this unearthly communication five nights ago. They alarmed him now, but he was a master at concealing his emotions.

 

 

_I am glad we were able to do business_. ~

 

 

 

 

........................................................................................


	5. ~ Steel Hand in Steel Glove ~

~ In the seraglio the women fluttered like birds, and Zadina had much ado to prevent them becoming over-excited. Today, the prince would formally take the rule of the city, and they were permitted to watch, to gather along the galleries which looked down upon the square, a thing that had never happened before, never even been heard of. Naturally, she thought, indulgently, they were excited; she was herself. 

The next two days had been declared a festival and each person in the city had been given coin from the treasury. It would all be spent by night on wine, and tomorrow there would be sore heads, but now, as the light laid thick white slabs onto the streets, the people hummed with excitement as they gathered to watch the procession from the north gate to the palace. 

While the ladies chose their jewels, with whispers and laughter, Zadina walked the by now familiar way from the seraglio to the Prince’s private chambers, using a corridor that had been built long ago so that the favorites might quickly attend the ruling Sultan. Uwath had never used this way; his favourites imprisoned in the hidden room, their small bodies disposed of in equal secrecy. 

Jehana occupied the chambers of the Prime Concubine, but whatever the other women whispered, Zadina did not believe there was any meaning to this. The prince simply wanted her close, and guarded. 

The girl was slowly recovering. She slept a great deal, and her appetite was beginning to return, but she was still too thin and inclined to shrinking and nervousness. Her dreams frequently brought her awake, crying out and sweating, and she would not leave the rooms. Zadina had offered to walk with her in the gardens, but Jehana shook her head. The furthest she would go was to the balcony, where she would sit on cushions behind the carved screens. Fragrant blooms twined green arms about the lacy stone, and, as the room had not been used for years, had grown unchecked, creating a scented emerald pavilion of solitude and peace. 

The Prince had not seen Jehana since he had brought the girl here. It was not Zadina's place to ask why, or what he purposed to do with her, though she wondered. All she knew was that the girl was to speak at the trial of her uncle. Looking at her now, Zadina did not think any force of persuasion could make her stand before the man whom had abused her. She looked like a child-princess in peacock colored robes, the girdle at her hips was of enameled silver links. Unveiled, since she was alone, her hair was threaded with yellow topaz, and her eyes were wide and wary, although she trusted Zadina now, and returned the warm embrace offered with a smile.

"Come, I will take you," Zadina cajoled, seeing the fear and hate in the delicate face. Seraglio women learned to hide their vulnerability behind paint and a veneer of sophistication. Jehana had not yet mastered that art.

The room looking over the square was usually occupied by scribes. In earlier times, these chambers had been the noisiest, the square beyond filled with vendors and courtiers, messengers and supplicants. Outer walls had been erected and now the space beyond the palace could be entered only by one guarded gate, but was still busy with the coming and going of many folk. The Sultan's private rooms were deep within the palace, which was originally shaped like a hollow square about the gardens where an aquifers welled up. The inner palace was where power resided, the outer was where the actual work of running the city was conducted, but today the scribes had laid down their quills and gone out to join the festivities. 

On the night he had killed Uwath, Vanimórë had opened the gates. Today they were again flung wide, and the square was filled with people. Nobles watched from under the shaded colonnades or the balconies which ran the entire frontage of the palace. The guards on the walls carried bows and a double line of them kept back the crowds. Even so, it was whispered that the prince was foolish to thus expose himself so soon after an attempt on his life. It was only the first of many, the nobles opined sagely behind their hands.

Zadina's young slave Lula was waiting and there was juice, wine, cold meat and fruit if Jehana desired refreshment. Here, there were no ornate screens to the balcony, although long wooden shutters could be pulled close against the sandstorms which at times howled in from the desert. Even with the freedom her position allowed her, Zadina felt uncovered, almost naked, as she looked out upon the heaving throng below, and Jehana stopped short. She imagined them looking up at her, the cries of: "whore!" the stones, the pain. Her head whirled, she said, high and breathless: "Mistress, I cannot go out there."

"You need not." Zadina was always comforting. She was the one warm, solid rock Jehana clung to, still feeling as if she were drifting in a dream and might wake to find herself in the airless dark of her room in the Street of Potters. Yet this was not the shadowy death she had believed in from a child, a black eternity of serving the Lord of the World. This was color, and perfume, savory food, sweet fruits, light wine, sleep in a bed with sheets of silk.

"You need not fear him." Zadina said softly.

"Mistress - what does he want of me?" Jehana's voice quavered. "Why am I here, if not to...? And I cannot...cannot...!" 

"Hush now, child! Lula, bring wine." Zadina sat the girl down upon a divan and waited until she had drunk a little. "He would not force you. There is another, in the next chamber, a young man." She nodded toward the wall. "He was sold as a child to the high priest, and was his catamite. The Prince brought him from the temple, and is to train him to become a soldier. I would not cross him, but I think I trust him. Insofar as I would trust any man," she added cynically. 

There was a look in her eyes that reminded Jehana of Bairi when she spoke of her husband, a glint that had caused the girl to wonder if there was indeed more than pain and disgust. Zadina wore a different air these last days. She walked with a sway of her full hips, as Bairi had, as a woman might who was desired by a man. Curiosity nudged at Jehana's mind, but the thought of a man on her, inside her, the smell, the weight, the burning as he took her, the cramp in her stomach, brought sickness rising into her throat. 

"If you wish to return to your rooms, have Lula tell the guard and he will conduct you." Zadina rose. "I must oversee the women, but I will return. We are close by, you will hear them no doubt." The affection was plain in her voice. "Remember, no-one will touch you here. And no-one will come in but I. The prince has ordered it." 

Jehana sat listening to the swell of noise. Would her mother be in that great crowd, would Bairi? How was she and Adani? Would they look up at the seraglio women and cry out, "whores!" 

Lula sat tranquilly with a sewing basket close to her, threading silver into a veil. She wore the round copper anklets which marked one born into slavery, but she seemed content enough in her servitude. Zadina was a kindly mistress. Lula glanced up as the sound of female voices rose from close by. 

"Is that the women of the seraglio?" Jehana came to her feet, forcing her mind away from her thoughts. Lula put aside the veil and got up.   
"Yes, mistress, they are in the next room." 

Certainly they did not sound frightened, these women whom she had been taught to think of painted whores, whom the people eagerly awaited for when they were pushed out of the palace gates at the time of the Clearances. She knew the fate of those women. Chafal had returned to the house once, drunk and satisfied, having been there when the 'old whores' were cleared. There had been blood on him, and he smelled of sweat and seed, the ugliness of violence. She shuddered violently, listening to the exhilarated laughter of the women and heard Zadina's voice chiding. The noise from outside grew louder. 

"Mistress, may I look?" Lula pleaded and Jehana, still unused to any-one asking her permission, nodded. She took a few steps, pausing before she reached the balcony. There was no blood-hunger, no hate in this great sound. 

 

If the women laughed and chattered, not only Jehana was silent among the palace onlookers. Sakkarah, his hands pressed hard on the stone baluster, fixed his eyes upon the gate through which his lord would ride.   
For this day, the army had turned out. 

Sud Sicanna had not maintained a great army for hundreds of years. It had not needed one. Those it could not bribe, it seduced. The city was necessary for the flow of trade from the rich, exotic kingdoms of the south, walled behind their crumbling mountains, and from the north and east. To march an army to it would be risky, for the tribes of the surrounding desert were not friendly to strangers and killed those who trespassed without mercy. The desert itself was merciless. But the times were uncertain, as Bradhi had pointed out. The Harad had sent warriors to the great war and many had never returned. There was much ambition and volatility in the air. 

"It is better if such a place is considered safe for merchants and for investment," the Prince had told Sakkarah one evening. "We do not want trade to die. And I am sure the merchants would prefer no upheaval. But we need a good army, and I will create one."

He had begun immediately. Criers went out into the city to proclaim that any man under thirty-five who joined the army would be paid a certain sum each quarter year, and be given a house. Most of the property in the city was owned by the wealthy, who took rents from their tenants and the prince, with Uwath's wealth at his disposal had been purchasing more houses from the nobles, or had acquired them after the executions of their previous owners.

Youths and men had streamed to the barracks. All soldiers were paid, of course but it had been a niggardly wage, and not a profession any-one entered for wealth. Sud Sicanna was a trade city and had not been at war for hundreds of years, there was no plunder to be had, no way for a soldier to enrich himself. A succession of rulers had seen no need to glamorize the army and make it more attractive, save to choose the palace guards from the longer serving officers, and in that position a soldier might indeed enrich himself with bribes. 

"I am a warrior, it is all I know," the Prince had said dryly, and then smiled before he rode to meet with the General. 

The prince returned in the evening, sand clinging to his boots and skin, unbuckled his sword harness and said: "Let me show you how to maintain a sword. A warrior must always look after his weapons."

It was said, later, that the General approved of his new ruler. 

Sakkarah was lodged in a chamber not far from the prince. At times he walked in the gardens in the cooler morning and dusk, but he kept away from the court, save at feasts. This was both the Prince’s order and his own desire, for the moment. The youths of the seraglio, who saw him walking looked at him with speculation, whispering among themselves. They thought him a prospective favourite no doubt like the girl, Jehana, equally sequestered. Already rivalry was intense. 

Sakkarah did not tell them the truth; he was not accustomed to company and these glossy young men in their gorgeous clothes were another breed, strange and exotic as the peacocks that strutted in the lovely gardens. Yet, he thought, they had served the same purpose as he and from what he had heard, had hated their dead and unlamented master as much as he. 

Perhaps he alone gave no credence to the whispers that the prince was the Lord Zigûr. He knew the beliefs of the priests and the rites of the temple too well. Although the Zigûr was believed to be god, it was one greater, fallen long ago, that the temple was dedicated to. Said to be the oldest in the Harad, it was a place of darkness and blood. Whomever the Prince was, he did not demand blood nor, it seemed, did he demand anything else, only loyalty. 

One day, Sakkarah vowed, I will ride behind him, a full-fledged warrior, not a former catamite, used only to pleasure a corrupt old man. 

Then the cavalcade came through the open gates, and the crowds exploded into wild cries. Colourful streamers filled the air, whirling in clouds over the riders. 

The prince was at the head, all in black save for the plume of the helm which matched the color of his eyes. He was mounted on a great stallion who trotted almost on the spot, muscled neck arched and mane streaming. Behind him came the General, captain Jaisal and in a double file, the palace guards and soldiers, their armor polished, their steps crisp. Uwath had ridden in a covered litter. The Dark Prince was no Uwath. Sakkarah saw a warrior, a leader of men, more at home on the battlefield than reclining on couches. 

His mind returned to the image which would ever be vivid in his memory: the doors of the temple smashing open, the dark warrior riding in, his mount rearing over the figure of Mokar, the fire in the violet eyes, the run of light down the silver blade as it sheared through the high priests wrists. If he were not very careful he could weep at the memory, the realization that here was one who did not fear the Dark God, indeed had seemed contemptuous of Him. 

From her position Jehana could see the gates open. She saw not a man, but a faceless figure in armor. And she was afraid. 

 

........................................................................................

 

Most of the city slept late the next day, some in alleys where they had fallen in drunken stupors. The palace had not slept at all, and only when dawn came did the revelers seek their beds. In the Sultan's chambers there was no noise but the call of birds, the rustle of parchment, the scratch of a quill, as Vanimórë penned orders. As the sun spread light on the balcony, he dusted sand over the last document and and rose.

It was already hot. The slaves and servants had been excused their duties until noon, and the palace was unnaturally silent, the hum from the city itself muted. Resting his hands upon the baluster, Vanimórë's eyes scanned the walls and towers in one brief, thorough sweep. He saw everything and he saw in his mind, as if overlaying it, a vision of armies, tall Men and Elves with burning stars piercing the storm-wrack of war. He saw a beautiful dying king, a Fëanorion whose eyes held an eternity of anguish. (Such eyes, Tindómion, so like thy father's!) He saw an Elf-lord with hair gold as metal, felt him about him, within him, heard his voice...

"...thou couldst have come with us, lived among thy people for a time."

He had smiled ironically, saying nothing. He did not need to.

"And when Sauron exerted his power over thee,"   
Glorfindel continued. "He would have known where Imladris lies and perhaps other things which he must not discover."

More than any-one in Middle-earth, Vanimórë knew that Sauron would return. 

Glorfindel, thou didst know why I could not so easily shake off the chains that bind me, to go where I have always desired, to the Elf kingdoms and discover the heritage lost to me. It could not be. I think it can never be. 

He heard Glorfindel say: "I think we will meet again one day. And I will know whom thou art." And his own answer: "Perhaps we will." 

He remembered their verbal sparring, the fierce sex, exploding out of passion and a grinding, bloody war, the respect which had blossomed between them. He thought of the doom pronounced upon Gil-galad's soul, which was when he had truly known that there was no freedom from him, no peace in Valinor, under the Valar whom had pronounced the love of one’s own gender a sin.

His mouth set, and he turned his head north, thinking of Maglor's son, of Maglor himself, both still alive, both, no doubt, wishing they were not. And, like the ghost of a whisper on the edge of his consciousness he felt the diminished spirit of Sauron. 

"I know thou wilt return, father," he whispered. "But until them, I am mine own master." He took a breath of the hot air; it smelt of dust, sewers, perfume. It smelt of freedom. For a while, a little while. 

The palace still drowsed, save for the guards who saluted as he passed. When he came to the room he sought, he unlocked the door and entered.

"I wager that Chafal casts out his wife," Vanimórë had said to Captain Jaisal. "I want the house watched. When he does so, bring her here." 

The woman sat listlessly on the bed, hands loose in her lap. The long night-robe half fell from one thin shoulder and her hair was loose in grey-black snarls. Her eyes held a drugged look, which he expected. So hysterical had she been when brought here, that he had ordered her wine laced with poppy. 

Kalma looked up as he entered, and her eyes widened. She would have been a pretty woman, had it not been for the haggard fear which even the drug could not dispel. 

His appearance shocked her into movement, she flung herself back, tripped on the hem of her robe. She fell and crawled, whimpering toward the wall, arms over her head, pressing against it as if she willed to push herself through the stone. 

"I am not going to harm thee." 

She shook in all her limbs, curling herself up as small as she could. He said, calmly: "I have decided, Mistress Kalma, that thou wilt remain at the palace with thy daughter Jehana. I will give thee rooms and coin, as a palace servant. Thou art now part of my household." 

The woman froze, she did not look around, as he went on: "I will not ask thee to testify against thy husband. But he will be found guilty of rape and the abuse of his niece, among other offenses, and I will pronounce judgment on him. The sentence is death." 

His words seemed to come to her from a great distance, through a roaring in her ears. She walked in a sandstorm of fear, helpless, deaf and blind. 

"I understand fear, mistress, what it can do. Only the insane would not fear to be stoned, or burned. No-one would believe thee, would they? Or Jehana? But I do. And I believe thou lovest thy daughter. I will look after thee. There is nothing more to fear." 

Kalma felt everything rise up in her. The wail forced her to her feet, like a rod driven through her spine. Her mouth was open, tears bursting from her eyes, and she howled like a wounded animal in guilt, in grief, in a release of terror. She sounded as if she were being burnt alive. 

And then she felt herself enclosed against a hard body, which offered no violence. 

"When thou art rested, and when she is ready, thou canst see her." 

 

........................................................................................

 

Bradhi did not allow himself to get drunk. No man who juggled such a life as his could afford to. The house of dar Khizaj had controlled the Dark Sons for hundreds of years, and its lords were expert at keeping both lives separate. 

"Lord, how did you know?" he had asked.

"I have been here before," the Prince had replied. "Before thou wert born. And the Lord Sauron has many intelligencers and ways of keeping his finger on the pulse of these lands." His smile was ambiguous, almost teasing. "The Dark Sons came into existence after the death of the Sultan Tamash. He was of the Azanti tribe, whose people founded the city."

At his raised brow Bradhi nodded. 

"The Dark Wolf is always of the Azanti. I know the ways of contacting the Dark Sons. It did not surprise me that one of the wealthiest and most powerful princes of the city was the Wolf. I offered thee power – and thy life. I am very hard to kill, Bradhi. Thou hast chosen wisely."

"I am no fool, sire, and we have seen you are hard to kill."

"To those deserving of mercy, I will grant mercy. To those who do not, I will have none." 

Bradhi swallowed, remembering Uwath's death, his screams of torment.  
"I understand, sire."

The prince sat back. "The Azanti are a strange tribe, they know how to survive in the desert, they are secretive and kill any stranger entering their territory, those who stray of the trade road in storms – and it is said that in secret, they worship a goddess." 

Bradhi went cold. He heard himself saying swiftly: "That is a lie put about by the people of the city, sire! We worship the Lord of the World and the Lord Zigûr, and are faithful to him!"

The purple eyes smiled. "Perhaps I will visit the Azanti." 

"Sire, that would not be advisable, they will not treat with any who do not share their blood." 

"I know the history of their people, Bradhi." The prince lifted his wine goblet. "A long time ago, a tribe in the northern desert suffered hardship during a ten year drought. Some of them elected to travel south and seek for more fertile lands. They came from the North originally, very far in the North, and their tales remembered it. They would never return there." Bradhi knew he was staring. "Their journey was harsh even for a tough people who knew the desert. The older and weaker began to die. But the first wife of the leader, a woman named Shirat, began to have dreams. The tribe had always respected their wives and granddams, for their knew that strong women breed healthy children, and thus the tribe prospers. They listened to her, and she told them they must continue south, although it seemed that they would die in the waterless wastes and be lost." He tapped his fingers on the chased goblet. "There are more welcoming regions in the far south of course, but it is no journey to make unprepared, as thou wilt know. I always wondered what Power urged them south, into desert. Was it benign, or a deliberate act of cruelty?" The tone, the lace of contempt about the edges, disturbed Bradhi. His folk were superstitious, every Haradhan was, yet this one spoke of powers and gods as if he knew them personally, and did not think much of them. 

"And yet, the tribe found a great oasis in this, the harshest of deserts, with springs of deep, sweet water. They found something else: a great stone, which seemed marked as with old blood, and reeked of evil. Shirat said in trance that the Dark God himself had had set it here, in ancient days. Yet this place was a blessing to them, and they sacrificed a wild goat they found to the power had lead them to water. And so Sud Sicanna was founded." 

The prince drained his winecup and rose. "I brought the ancestors of the Azanti into the northern desert thousands of years ago. They are called the White Wolves in their tribal lands in the north, even though there are no wolves in the desert. I know their customs, their sacred language, the names of their holy men and warriors. They will not harm me. I am part of their legends." 

Bradhi cleared his throat, blinked. He said, through an ashen mouth. “The Dracth Khïr?" 

It was an ancient name, passed down through the Azanti through thousands of years. It was true the tribe had not always been of the Harad; they had been lead south by one they called the Dracth Khïr.   
Little was known of him, save that he had brought them from the lands of iron and cold in the far north, where they had been a slave people of the Dark God. Bradhi swallowed. Dark Prince... How had he missed it, or had his roots been smothered by riches and politics? 

"Tell them to make ready to speak with the Dark Prince." The smile was a brief flash. "Thou art their power and eyes in the city. The people of Sud Sicanna lie under my displeasure. I have seen swine fattened for the butchers block treated better than the women in this city!" His hands slammed down on the table and the candle flames jumped and quivered. "What have they to live for? The Azanti know the value of women, and I want women to be proud to bear sons to swell the army and daughters to marry well! No longer are they merely chattels. And this will be shown when the potter Chafal is judged." 

Bradhi moistened his lips. "You will condemn him?"

"He will be an example. This place is as corrupt and stinking as a fat old eunuch, and its laws are rotten. I have seen the same in other cities, but nothing like this. And I want to know why." The prince frowned. “I have never stayed here for long at a time. Naturally I had some interest in it since the Azanti, sept of the White Wolves, were people I knew well. But...” He tapped his fingers on the table. “Notwithstanding its wealth, it has always seemed a black place to me.” A faint smile bent his mouth. “But then, I am used to dark places.”

"I understand, my lord." In fact, Bradhi did not. He needed a drink and time to digest what he had learned — and then a message must be sent to the tribe.   
"When is the trial, my Lord? You know that the people will expect the girl to be burned alive."

"So every-one thinks," the prince agreed with a look that chilled Bradhi to his bones. "Bring thy wife, and any favored concubine — that order will go out to all the nobles who attend."

 

 

........................................................................................


	6. ~ I Am The Law ~

~ "I do not think she can do it, my Lord." Zadina bowed her head before the prince. "At least," she temporized, "Not so soon." 

She was still unused to being permitted to speak freely, but more often than not, the prince would tell her what she was thinking if she withheld. So far, he had never evinced anger, but Zadina could not abandon her inherent and hard-earned caution so soon. 

"Then do not tell her." His reply was calm. "But she must be there to answer the questions I put to her. I regret having to expose her so soon, but it will take but a moment, and she will, after, know that the man who abused her is dead. Thou shalt bring her and stay with her, and return her to her rooms immediately." 

"She is," the woman hesitated. "afraid of you, lord. She is afraid of almost every-one. And to face a crowd, and _him..._ ”

"How could it be otherwise? Listen to me.” He tilted up her chin, his fingers firm but not cruel. “This is the first trial at which a woman will be able to speak, but not the last. And I have spoken to the mother. I had her brought here. The potter threw her out, as I guessed he would." 

Zadina stared. 

"After the trial, Kalma will be with her daughter, if Jehana is willing to forgive her. But Kalma was as trapped as she and mad with fear and guilt. I forgive fear. And before thou thyself dost judge Kalma, think: thou didst know Uwath's appetites, and were close enough to him, I think, to have attempted to kill him."

She felt the heat in her cheeks, the old feeling of terror. Yes, she had thought if it, fondled the idea with desperation — and done nothing, too afraid of what would happen to her. 

"Fear," he said softly. "So. Kalma and Jehana are under my protection now." 

She swallowed. “Should I tell Jehana that, my lord? That her mother is here?" 

"If it will make a difference, yes. But impress upon her that she will not be forced to see her mother if she does not wish to, although I believe at some point she will." He turned and walked to the great desk. "Tomorrow, at the fifth horn, bring Jehana to the square. Tell her she is in no danger, give her poppy in wine beforehand if thou must, although not too much. She must speak out."

Zadina bowed her head. "Yes, sire. I think she trusts me." 

“But not me. Peace. I do not expect it. I have no intention of asking thee to groom her for my bed.” 

“I wish I could make her believe that. My ladies are trained to pleasure and you treat them well. Jehana...”

His smile was complex. “Yes, training is important. And it is amazing how we fall back on it. It becomes a support. Jehana never learned that. Neither will she have to.”

“My Lord?” Zadina's eyes narrowed. If it were not the most ridiculous of thoughts, she would have sworn him to be speaking from experience.

“I expect nothing of her,” he said with a nod of dismissal. “There will be time for her to decide what she desires in life. It will not be me.” 

 

........................................................................................

 

There had never before been a public trial of a woman accused of bringing dishonor on her father's house; such matters were traditionally dealt with by the family. 

Long before the dawn horns, the palace square was filled by a great crowd and more beyond the gates. They hoped they would see a burning, and it seemed likely, for it was said that two great barrels stood in the square, and a forge had been set up — perhaps a boiling, although that was a rare event.

Chafal had arrived with some of his cronies, although fewer than he had believed would accompany him, and many people from the street were present including Chulai and Bairi.   
Chafal stared at the couple and spat deliberately in their direction. He had always thought Chulai too soft on his wife. And here she was, flaunting herself abroad because she had been a friend to Jehana. Well, let her see the harlot burn! 

He drank from a stone jug, thinking of the woman he had paid for last night. It had been worth the few coppers to hear her screams. He would not pay more, his silver had been depleted and no-one had approached him offering him the means to add to it, not with that damned edict echoing in their ears! He looked at the barrels, one upon a platform, positioned so that it could be tilted over to pour its contents into the one beneath, and he smiled with anticipation, drank again. 

The sun climbed. Brassy horns sounded from the walls and the crowd fell silent as the prince emerged from the double doors of the palace. He was dressed in black leather, arms bare and the mane of black hair spilling down past his hips. There was no ostentation about him, no jewel or tiara of power, but his presence was vivid as burning diamond.

He sat down in a gilded chair on the top of the steps, four guards each side of him stood at attention. The people stared at him; he seemed oblivious. What was he? Chafal wondered, gathering more spittle in his mouth, but swallowing it. Beardless as a boy and skin the color of the moon. And those eyes. Witch eyes, out of Mordor. 

Well, if he wanted to mark the beginning of his rule this way, Chafal had no objections. He thought it a waste of time, and an outrage against his rights, but a public punishment would be entertaining. A pity he could not keep the wench, but once his wife had exposed the pregnancy, the trap was down. 

The prince raised his hand and spoke.  
"People of Sud Sicanna, before the trial begins, I must make certain things clear to thee. This city has earned the displeasure of Lord Sauron, whom thou doth call the Zigûr.” Without any seeming effort, without shouting, his voice carried. "There is an old saying, ' _A God sleeps with one eye open._ ’ And I am that eye. Sud Sicanna has fallen into disfavor and _thus I have come._!”

Eyes rolled white, and every breath lay indrawn at the whip-snap of the last words. Inwardly Vanimórë smiled. _Well, father, if throwing thy name around can help me in my goal, I have no compunction in doing so. I am sure thou wouldst appreciate the necessity. Thou didst name-drop in Lindon and Ost-in-Edhil, after all, and I am damned sure there was precious little Aulë could have taught thee._

"I am to build an army so that Sud Sicanna may serve its Overlord better, or be cursed to become crumbled ruins in the sand. And for that army I need strong sons. Strong sons are born of strong women. My edict will go out that henceforth every woman is potentially the mother of a soldier, every woman over childbearing age a midwife.” They would not understand not yet, his true reasons for this law, so he gave them something they would comprehend.   
‘They are precious to me, they will be well treated. If any are accused of witchcraft or of harlotry it must be proved to me! _And I am the final word!_ ”

He rose and walked down the shallow steps and directly to where Chafal stood. 

"Thou hast accused they daughter of bringing dishonor to thy house, of whoring, of carrying a child outside marriage." He flung the words into the potter's face like a blow. Sweat burst on Chafal's forehead in fat globules and his throat went dry. He longed for a gulp of wine, but those inhuman eyes impaled him like a moth on a pin.

"Speak!" The lashed word jerked him as if it had cracked over his body. 

"The whore dishonoured me," he blustered, hoarsely. "My Lord. She was judged, as is my right." 

"Tuali." Vanimórë snapped his fingers and a young man in rich robes came forward bearing a roll of parchment. 

"Tuali bears the testimonies taken in the Street of the Potters and also in the market of the Ninth Bell. We find it very strange that the girl was able to get pregnant under these circumstances. Tuali, read." 

Unrolling the scrolls, the young man cleared his throat, and said: "We have statements from witnesses who say that you never permitted your daughter to leave the house alone, that in the past two years, she was permitted onto the street only if you or her mother were with her, that her mother went to the market alone, leaving her daughter with you. Only the wife of the potter Chulai, called Bairi, and her young son ever visited your house. When you were gone from it."

"Then she crept out at night!" 

"And no-one came forward admitting they were the father of the child. Or rather," Tuali continued, "You gave no-one a chance to come forward." 

"She dishonored my house, it is my right to judge her!" Chafal puffed. 

"Not any more. And it was thine own child growing in her belly." 

The man's eyes bulged. 

"There is proof. Money buys many secrets — it buys many things does it not, potter?" 

"No!" 

"But yes," the prince gazed at him unblinking. "She went nowhere and thou wouldst never have allowed a suitor into thy house. Thy wife was sent out, and thou didst keep the girl there to rape her in private." 

There was a thick slime of sweat on Chafal's brow. He shook his head in the sudden awful silence. 

"I can have witnesses brought who know. She was told if she spoke she would be burned or stoned." 

"She was a whore!" Chafal spluttered, unable to keep his eyes on the Prince. “She watched me, rubbed against me! She temped me! Women, they do that, Lord.”

"So why would she choose her own uncle? A violent sot, a stinking, ugly piece of filth?”

Chafal gaped. Under their veils, the women in the crowd stared at him and he could feel their hatred like the sun’s heat. He wanted to hit out, to maim and kill, and he could not move. This demon terrified him. His bladder loosened, a stream of urine running down his leg. 

"A man who will take money for procuring children is capable of raping his own niece."

A guard came forward, carrying a wooden chest, at the sight of which Chafal swallowed noisily. 

"A poor potter...? There is a goodly sum here. And there was more before the night I killed Uwath. Suhala the Vintner supplied thy wife with much wine, paid for in silver. Good wine too." 

"Saved!" Chafal stuttered. "Saved over years of hard work. I am thrifty!" 

"The men who took the boy Adani have vanished. No doubt thou didst think thyself safe?" Chafal felt each word punching him, as if he were fighting an opponent who would give him no quarter. He was wholly unused to such a feeling. He was a coward, but his size and bulk allowed him to bully and intimidate others, and he traded on that. "But the one who sent them, thy contact in the palace knew thy name. I found him. And I have another witness." 

The crowd was murmuring now. Chulai stared murder at the potter. 

"Sakkarah," the prince said, and a tall youth came forward, his dark eyes like coals. 

"Speak. This is the one who sold thee to the temple?" 

"It is he, sire " Sakkarah set down his words with clear, flinty hatred. "Mokar knew him well. When the slavers came to the city, some of us, young boys and girls were never put on the block for auction. We were sold beforehand, to this man." 

"The priests did not purchase their catamites openly in the slave market?" 

"No, sire." Sakkarah's words came harshly. "This man supplied us more cheaply. The High Priest was also...thrifty." 

Chafal turned livid. The prince's eyes held ember fire.  
"Thou didst send the boy Adani to the market, telling thy friends to wait for him and take him to the palace — to Uwath. He would have been one of many children whose bodies were buried below the palace. And thou didst know it!" 

"No! I scarce knew the boy!" 

"You son of a poxed snake!" Chulai's voice rose from the crowd. "There were rumors of you! Out each night, and meeting with men not from our quarter! You had money to whore and drink, but kept your household poor! And you would not dower Jehana because you wanted her yourself!" He threw himself forward, his friends restraining him. “And you took money for my son's innocence!" 

There was an uproar, women screamed, men shouted, and the soldiers clashed before them with locked shields. 

Chafal shrank back, his own voice rising. "She bewitched me! She looked at me, beckoned me! Told me to get money for her. It is the whore’s fault! Burn her and the spell will be lifted!" 

There was no way he could control this mob, thought Captain Jaisal as he shouted for his men to hold against the surge of people. 

"Be silent!" There was an odd deep-toned compulsion to the two words. The prince leaped up to stand beside the great barrel which steamed in the baking air. Jaisal felt his eyes lock on the tall figure as if he were drawing the eyes of the crowd to himself by sheer will-power. _He cannot not conceive of being disobeyed,_ the man thought. He had seen it the night Uwath died. And thus he _was_ obeyed. A sandstorm would have stopped for him. The noise subsided.

"Thou shalt have thy spectacle, but _I_ pronounce judgment. _And I am the law!_ ”

 

......................................................................................

 

Jehana had drunk a goblet of wine laced with poppy. She trusted Zadina, who had told her over and over that after this day she need never leave the palace if she so desired.

"The Prince desires to see you, only briefly, and I will stay with you," Zadina promised. After, Jehana could, if she wished, see her mother, who was devastated by what she had done. Failed to do. 

Her mother...! Jehana had been so shocked that she allowed herself to be dressed, but she was still trembling and confused as she walked with Zadina to the great doors. She was not even certain where they were going. 

When she saw the crowd, the fire, the great barrels she jerked to a halt, quivering, her mouth shaping silent protests, but Zadina's arm swept her irresistibly forward. Tears of terror started in her eyes as she heard Chafal, and Zadina made her go no further, casting a look of entreaty at the prince. 

He walked toward her. Jehana saw a tall blur of black and white and eyes which glowed radiantly, unnatural and ominous. She pressed back against Zadina who was murmuring: "Peace, child, he will not hurt you." 

"Mistress Jehana, thou art called here to testify against Chafal, son of Imun," he said, his words echoing oddly in her ears. "All thou must do is answer me. Did this man force himself on thee?" 

Hands were choking her throat again. She clasped it, felt she might scream or faint and she felt his eyes on her like a brand.

"Tell the truth, child, you are safe, I swear " Zadina whispered. 

Jehana's eyelids closed to block out where she was, what she saw. Her voice came like the bleat of a ewe-lamb: "Yes, Lord." 

Mutterings from the crowd, bellows of denial from Chafal, met by caustic accusations from Chulai. She could not understand what they were saying.

"For how long did he rape thee, lady?" 

It had seemed like forever; was it two years?  
Her voice was barely audible; she stumbled over each word. 

"He accuses thee of witchcraft." 

"Ay! Look at her now! She has bewitched this prince too! Dressed like a harlot..!"

Fear churned in her belly; the old horror, and inwardly (or was she screaming aloud?) she wailed. _I hated him! He hurt me! He befouled me! I can still feel him, and I wanted to die, to kill myself...and lacked the courage!_

Noise swirled around her, she felt herself held firmly, heard Zadina saying something urgently. 

"That is truth." Jehana could find no air to breathe that was not tainted with Chafal's wine-sweat. Grasping blindly at air, she touched something hard and jerked back, remembering the one who had lifted her from the street as she ran from the stones, the scent of leather and sandalwood. 

"The lady is under my protection and she and her mother are of my household," the Prince proclaimed. "Yes, potter, I took thy wife in, and she had many things to say. How many examples are needed before this damned city understand that it adheres to my laws? From the wealthiest Merchant Prince to the poorest beggar, no-one is exempt! And this potter, who sold children to Uwath, to the temple, who raped his brother's daughter. My judgement falls upon _him._ ”

The silence fell like a hammer. 

Jehana felt herself being lead away, Zadina's arms about her, wine at her lips, she smelled the scent she associated with her rooms, calming and soft.  
“He...” she gulped, lightheaded. “H-he...What is...what is h-happening?”

Zadina rubbed her back. 

“He will die, child,” she said with grim satisfaction.

“Truly?” 

“As the prince purposed from the beginning.”

Jehana closed her eyes, still wondering if she dreamed and tried to control her frantic breathing.

 

........................................................................................

 

Guards lashed Chafal's arms behind his back and in that same bruised silence, forced him up the steps to the platform. He was lowered, struggling and shrieking into the empty barrel. 

The prince nodded once and the guards worked the simple lever of the one above. It tilted slowly, disgorging boiling sand down upon the man. 

And the prince watched, his expression showing no pleasure, no anger, barely any interest, until the thing that had been a man could only mewl weakly, his voice and sanity destroyed.

He gestured briefly and the smith, his hands and face covered against heat, brought a crucible in which a red light glowed. The prince donned heavy gloves and poured the molten silver of Chafal's ill-gotten money down into his throat. ~

 

.....................................................................................

 

She woke after a long sleep to the stillness of early morning. Her mouth felt unpleasantly dry, and she knew that there must have been poppy-syrup in her wine yesterday. She did not like the thick-headedness it left behind, for all that it calmed her, and when Lula, rising from her couch in the alcove brought her water, Jehana drank it thirstily.  
Saying she would go and bring fresh-pressed juice, the slave silently left the rooms and Jehana rose and washed.

_He is dead._

That was certainly true. Zadina had received a message not long after they had come back to her rooms, and Jehana had not wept, but sat perfectly still to digest it. She had not truly believed Chafal would be found guilty, for when was any man found guilty of violence against women? 

_My mother is here._

A flood of rage rose up. She had yearned for Kalma to do something, even if it meant death — and Chafal would certainly have killed his wife. But before her second marriage there had been love and closeness between mother and daughter. 

Jehana went to the green-shadowed balcony. She had never seen much of her true father for he, unlike his brother, was a hardworking man, a porter at the spice market. The dusty perfume of spices had always hung around the small house, emanating from his clothes. Jehana had been in bed before he came home and he was gone before dawn, but she had memories of a stocky man with grave eyes. Kalma's voice had been softer then, and she had torn her clothes in grief when a wasting fever widowed her. 

_She should have killed Chafal...I should have killed him..._

And they would have both died dreadful deaths. 

But would that have been worse than the life they had both lived? 

_She lived in terror, as I did._

A movement drew her eyes downwards, and she saw a small black cat, scarcely more than a kitten, run out onto the garden below. A moment later it bounded away as two people came into view. One was the Prince, the other a man carrying a sheaf of papers. Jehana shrank back a little, although she was quite concealed, then paused as the cat streaked back and swarmed up the Prince’s leg to his shoulder, almost vanishing under the fall of hair. One hand reached up to rub it, as he murmured something, and then stopped, pointing. The man beside him crinkled up his eyes as if measuring something and nodded, making a mark on one of the papers. They came closer, and Jehana, watching the trustfulness of the cat, hesitated. The man spoke in a mumble, too low for her to make out words, but the Prince’s voice, while not loud, was pitched so that she could hear him clearly.

“Well, he is gone and I am not appointing another. Knock through his chambers. The wall is much newer than the palace. Look.” he took the stick of charcoal and drew something quickly. “This was the original building. And those next to it. They too are now vacant.”

“....my Lord?”

“They were the Overseer's. I have appointed one in his place, but he is lodged elsewhere.”

The man muttered something as he once again squinted at the buildings.

“And the chambers above. They are empty now.”   
The cat was kneading contentedly at his shoulder. He lifted it's sharp little claws from his skin and answered another mumble with something like a smile in his voice. “No, why? I am sure the ladies will be interested to see what changes are being made to their accommodation.” 

The man's head came up and he made a noise of protest. 

“Oh, do not be a fool. Start tomorrow. The palace will provide food and drink, and I do not wish to see the men working at midday. Understand?”

The man bowed and retreated, and Jehana watched the prince walk across to one of the fountains, still carrying the cat. She remembered Chafal drowning a kitten in a barrel of lamp oil last year. He would not tolerate cats, and kicked the skinny dogs who swarmed in the streets.

“No!” she exclaimed, although he could hardly have heard her.

But he did. His eyes came up and met hers through the riot of greenery, then he deliberately placed the small creature on the lip of the fountain where it lapped at the water. After its drink, the cat climbed back onto his shoulder, apparently considering it a comfortable resting place. 

Jehana let out a breath and moved back into her rooms feeling foolish. The prince had executed Uwath and several others and more since them, including Chafal, but Zadina was not afraid of him, and there was no defensive shielding in her eyes, as there had always been in Kalma's. He did not seem to be the sort of man — But he is a not a Man! — to drown kittens, but she could not so easily come to trust. He frightened her, and she did not want to attract his attention.

Nor, it seemed, did Lula fear him. When she returned, a small basket hung over one arm, bearing the cat. Lula said with a strange mixture of awe and excitement: “Mistress, the Prince said he is devastated you would think he would harm something so defenseless, and says that you should take charge of Raakshi.” 

The cat had very green eyes. It regarded Jehana with all the gravity of an Empress before giving a piercing yowl. She touched a finger to it's small head and a purr seemingly far larger than the small body could produce, thrummed out. 

“She should have food,” Jehana murmured, feeling herself smile. 

“It is coming, Mistress,” Lula went to the outer door to bring back chopped roast fowl and and milk. When Raakshi had eaten her fill, she curled up with queenly unconcern on Jehana's lap.

Raakshi. It meant 'little lady', an affectionate term a father might use to a loved daughter – and Jehana's own father had called her a Raakshi, in the gentler days before Chafal. She sank back among the cushions, her hands gentle on the dark fur, feeling, with the rhythmic motions, a stillness settle over her, as if she sat at the bottom of a deep well where none might touch her.

 

.......................................................................................

 

The caves were cool. Beneath them a deep aquifer lay, and chasms and chinks in the rock allowed breaths of sweet air to pass up from the depths. 

The Azanti called this place Earthwell, and guarded it jealously from outside intrusion. It could be approached only by two narrow gorges and the land about it was crumbled and blasted by the sun. Even the sand failed here, leaving naked rock and league upon league of killing, shadowless heat. 

Long ago there had been a great subsidence in the earth. Perhaps a great cavern had collapsed, for the area was riddled with caves. It had formed the valley, hiding it from anything but the eye of a flying bird. Palms grew about three oases, goats, horses and camels could graze here and in the caves the tribe lived and birthed, wove and cooked and governed. It was not their only refuge in the desert, but it was the richest and most secret. It was said no-one not of the Azanti had ever seen Earthwell.

Shendoah, younger brother of Bradhi and Chieftain of the tribe, dismissed the messenger. One of Bradhi's own household had come from the city. There were more Azanti in Sud Sicanna than most dreamed, they passed back and forth without hindrance in the guise of farmers and servants. Shendoah stirred as he felt his wife's eyes on him.  
“We must take this to the Mother,” she said. 

“Yes.” He rose. “She will already know, of course.”

They crossed Earthwell, through palm groves, past goats and their herders, a child pursuing an escaped hen; a group of young women walked back from the Drinkwell with pots balanced gracefully on their heads, hips swaying, feet balanced like dancers on the earth. They chattered gaily, their silver jewelry tinkling, and hailed the man and women with rich voices. Under the palms it was pleasant and they skirted the Pool of Women, where the women of the tribe bathed. No man was supposed to observe them. That law had been set down by the Mothers of the Azanti long ago, but to break it carried no greater penalty than for the transgressor to be pulled into the water amidst much laughter. Many a young man had tested his skills at reaching the pool unobserved to get a glimpse of his sweetheart, and the majority of them did not try too hard to remain unnoticed once they had achieved their object. It was also said the waters conferred fertility on women, and when a girl reached puberty they were conducted with great ceremony to the pool for a night of supposedly solemn ritual among their sisters. In reality, the women drank palm wine, laughed and told the most scurrilous stories about their husbands. Woven with the mirth and gossip were words of wisdom for the girl which would stand her in good stead. It was the only time the men did avoid the pool, for the tradition was very ancient and touched on the one whom, they believed, had gifted them with Earthwell. 

At last, leaving the shade, they came to a cave apart from he others. Shendoah fell back. His wife bowed before the entrance and a voice came from within.  
“Diala, Shendoah. Enter.” 

Brightly dyed rugs covered the stone floor and the air was perfumed with sage. A shallow copper dish fumed with some pungent herb. The woman who sat upon cushions was old, but her red and white robes were finely woven, and silver rings clasped her thin wrists and ankles. Her eyes were intelligent, bright as sequins in her seamed face. 

“Well, children?” 

They went down on their knees before her and Diala reached out a hand to kiss the veined one.   
“I am sure you know, Mother Iylar.” 

The dark eyes twinkled. “More than you do.”

“Of course,” Shendoah said respectfully, but with an amused smile tugging at his mouth. “But I do not know what you consider important.”

“All of it,” the woman said briskly. “Some things I have seen...the foundations of the city are being rocked at last. Their thunder resounds through the sand.” Suddenly she looked very tired. “It has been so long.”

“The seeing has wearied you,” Diala said with concern.

“I have not looked into the smoke, child. I have dreamed.”

“Of what, Mother?” Shendoah asked.

“Of him, mostly. I have seen him before: The Chained One.” Iylar took a cup of water from Diala and sipped. “I saw him long ago and not in the smoke or in dream: I went to the city as a young woman. He came with warriors of the Black Land then. There were bonds of red fire about his soul.There is still a shadow over him, but he walks alone.” 

“The Dark God?” Diala questioned and the crone pinched her chin, smiling. 

“Good girl. Yes. The rumors are true, but we do not need rumors. He has been defeated — for now. The Dark Prince is free — for now. He has already shown his hand in the city.”

Shendoah shifted cushions behind her and cocked a brow. “He has certainly made himself known. There has already been a conspiracy against him.” He laughed. “But he was ahead of them. He went to Bradhi. I think my brother was surprised for the first time in his life.”

“Fools!” Iylar hissed. “They think they know what he is! I am descended in direct line of Shirat, who, in her turn was descended of Liesha, our foremother who came out of the Iron North. The Drachth Khïr lead us to our first home, where our kin still dwell. The Azanti remember! But that city is built on evil. It resents his coming.” 

“What has the Drachth Khïr to do with us now?” Shendoah asked. “It is true he is setting changes in motion, but I do not see how it involves the Azanti, Mother.”

Iylar sat back and knotted her hands together.   
“I do not know yet,” she admitted. “I will know more when he comes here. I came close to him in a dream last night, but I cannot see his mind. I would not want to.” 

“We will allow him to come, then?” Shendoah inquired.

“Certainly we will allow it. She sleeps. But She also dreams.” ~ 

 

........................................................................................


	7. ~ Earthwell ~

~ The prince was known to be visiting the villages that clustered about Sud Sicanna, but no-one save a few knew that he was to meet with the Azanti. Jaisal, left to guard the palace, was moved to protest:   
“My Lord, the Azanti do not meet with strangers, or admit them into their tribal lands. I have seen what is left of those who have strayed into them.” 

Vanimórë smiled. “For shame. How canst thou speak of thine own people in such a way?” The chamber was empty save for they two, and no-one was there to see the captain's eyes go blank. 

“Most pureblood Azanti live in the desert, but some come to the villages and city. It is a way of keeping the blood fresh. And many return with wives to the tribe, I would wager. For what woman would not want to leave this place and go to one where she might be treated as human? And I think there is another reason,” the Prince paused. “I think no-one with Azanti blood treats their women as cattle. In Uwath's chamber thou didst speak of thy wife with love in thy voice. The Azanti come into Sud Sicanna to live, to try and leaven the evils which exist here.” 

Jaisal said nothing. 

“Look after the women while I am away,” Vanimórë said and buckled his sword-harness, turning to the door. “The tribe will be expecting me by now.” 

He left the soldier outside the doors, still holding to his shuttered careful mien and thinking furiously.

........................................................................................

It surprised none of the wealthy that Bradhi accompanied the Prince. After the failed assassination attempt, it was clear that Bradhi had become the most influential noble in the city. He was certainly the richest. His own guard almost exceed the numbers Uwath had kept about him, and his tacit support of the new ruler, the executions that had taken place, had brought down a watchful peace on the ambitious, who were biding their time and watching which way the sand blew.  
The tale of how the Dark Prince had outwitted the assassin and the men whom had hired him, had grown with the telling, and no-one was willing to risk the kind of deaths Uwath or the drunken potter had endured.

The prince was to stay in Nuali Kabash, a large village that had grown up about the first caravansary a weary traveler would reach after the last leagues of the Burning Walk. It was a prosperous place, and merchants on the first rungs of the trade ladder often bought and sold in the market there rather than be overlooked by the greater competition in Sud Sicanna and have their profit reduced by the higher fees for storage and accommodation.   
Nuali Kabash would never grow much larger, for the oasis there was small and could not support a large population, but it was a pleasant spot, some of the city's wealthy had built small villas there from whence they hawked. 

Bradhi's villa was a small-scale palace, and here his wife, a fiery eyed beauty, dwelled, presiding over and acting as, Mistress of his seraglio.  
High walls surrounded it and water was brought in from the oasis by way of pipes. There was a serene, but almost secretive feel to the place, shattered but not dispelled by the arrival of its owner with the new Prince. Behind the stamp of horses hooves and the bray of camels bearing baggage, the voices of the soldiers, the strange peace still brooded, absorbing the noise. It touched the men, who went to the barracks, which ran along one wall. Vanimórë's soldiers would be situated apart, but no doubt would join Bradhi's people for wine and gambling later. 

The house was cool and quiet. A servant lead Vanimórë to his rooms and asked if he required a body servant to bathe him. His manners were perfect, but his eyes continually lifted to the strange, white-skinned face and his hands were clasped very tightly at his waist. 

“I will see to my own needs,” Vanimórë said, taking pity on him. 

“Lord,” he said with relief, “my master desires me to show you to his private chambers to dine after you have refreshed yourself.” 

“I would be delighted.” Vanimórë dismissed the man and prowled the chambers, searching for spy-holes. Bradhi would be a fool not to use them — and indeed he was no fool. 

He bathed quickly and thoroughly, noting how the waste water ran down into stone cisterns to be re-used, he thought, for the gardens. Then, having dressed and braided back his wet hair, he followed the servant to Bradhi's private chambers.

These were airy and opulently appointed. A low table was set with steaming dishes, and Bradhi, already seated, rose. The woman with him likewise came gracefully to her feet, bowing low. This was not, Vanimórë knew, where out-tribe guests would be customarily entertained, for his wife wore gold and pearls from some warm, distant sea, and carried an assurance of her place and self he had seen in no other woman of Sud Sicanna. Her veil floated out from under a circlet, the ends thrown back across her shoulders. 

“My wife, Fhara,” Bradhi introduced her and she bent her knees Her smoke-rimmed eyes stared, but Vanimórë was long accustomed to such curiosity.   
“Lady,” he bowed. 

“Here we may speak openly,” Bradhi gestured to the meal, and Vanimórë sank down, crossing his legs. 

“My servants are all of the tribe,” his host went on. “None will question any leaving here at night and riding into the desert. I will send a guide with you to the Shattered Hills. There you will be met and taken to the tribe.” 

“Tell me about the goddess,” Vanimórë interposed, but the words were addressed to Fhara. She flicked a look at her husband and then met his eyes. 

“I am told you are an emissary here for the Lord Zigûr.” Her words and voice challenged. “You know the Azanti, Lord, my husband has told me. How do you not know of the Goddess?”

“Each time I have traveled here,” Vanimórë said, “I have headed a contingent from Mordor. I came here when Uwath took the rule to remind him that Sauron expected warriors to be sent for his coming war, and was here some years before that, in Thafir's reign. I have met with members of the Azanti secretly, in the city. Sauron knows of thee, for he sees all I see, but to him thou art but one of the many tribes of the Harad, people I have a history with, and it is true I lead them south before the war which thou dost name the Time of Fire and Thunder.” He took a sip of the wine. It was very good, probably from the rich vineyards about Umbar. “They were not one single tribe then, but came from all the peoples who had journeyed out of the East. Their lives were hard, there, but I came to know them, and grow fond of them. They lived under the shadow of the darkest power, and yet there was love, and courage in them.” 

The listeners were silent. Much of this was known to them, part of the lore of their tribe, but Vanimórë was here, solid, real, a foundation-stone of their history. 

“I was ordered to take some men with me to search for another fortress, but we had to turn south, for the Iron Mountains were well-nigh impassible. We journeyed into fertile lands and then came the War that broke the north.” 

“The drowning of the world,” Fhara murmured. Outside, a wind had sprung up and eased through the carven screens with a moan. 

“It lasted many years,” Vanimórë said. “And when it ended, I knew that the Dark God was gone, defeated. Sauron I could still feel, but he had gone far into the east. I had a duty to the people I lead and again we moved, coming south, through Gondor into the region now called Al Amrûn on the edge of the Great Erg. There was water there, deep wells, good land for sheep and goats. There was initially some conflict with a tribe that claimed that land, but eventually, the White Wolves, as they named themselves, were accepted and became leaders of that tribe in time. They remained nomads — still are, and I stayed with them until I was called back by Sauron.” _As I will be again..._   
He turned the winecup in his hand. “One might say I felt a proprietary interest in the Wolves, but my duties also take me into eastern lands, and it was not until long after I learned of the hardship they had suffered and those whom had chosen to come south. I believed it foolhardy, for I had come to know the desert, and it does not suffer fools.”   
His head came up from the run of light on the silver. “Tell me about the Goddess,” he said again. “There are female powers in the uttermost West, the Valier, but which one do the Azanti worship? And how would they know her? The Powers left the lands of Middle-earth long before the Awakening of Men. I have known only the Dark God and he did not love women.” 

Fhara stared at him in the lamplight and then crossed her hands over her breasts in an oddly ritualistic manner. 

“Lord, you must go to the Mother,” she said with decision. “She waits for you. There is knowledge only she and her chosen successor hold. This should not be spoken of so openly, even here.” 

Bradhi was nodding in agreement. There was a strange expression in his eyes.  
“Yes, lord,” he agreed. “And if you are willing, you should go now.”

.........................................................

They reached the Shattered Hills, a waste of sun-bleached rock, as the sun rose. The guide, a youth who had waited beyond Bradhi's palace, paused as Vanimórë reined in. There was a magnificence to the desert, even this place which was more than arid, like the broken bones of the world crumbled by a furnace and left to be pounded age upon age by the relentless sun, but there was also a desolation that he who saw beauty in so many things, found disturbing. He had felt it in other places that where shadows of violence and death lingered, but he had never felt it in a place unpeopled by man.

The night, though, had been glorious, the stars startling in their abundance, a profligate display of diamond strewn on the blue-black sky. He felt the rock and sand vanish and his soul lift upwards, as if he could swim among their beauty and be lost. But the morning dragged him earthward and he looked ahead at the leagues rolled out of dark by the rising sun and saw no sign of man. 

His guide pointed and, with a mental shrug, Vanimórë followed. And after a league of increasing heat, he saw the man and horse appear to sink downward. It was a path that delved into the earth itself, and it gradually descended, twisting around shoulders of bare rock so that progress was necessarily slow and one could not see far ahead. Gradually the canyon walls rose above and they were in shadow. The track funneled the air, and Vanimórë smelled water in the breeze that blew upon him. 

When he saw Earthwell, he stopped in astonishment. He had seen such depressions in the earth, the collapsed rims of great volcanos. Udûn, behind the Morannon, was itself a caldera. But this was not as they, it was not as large, and had none of the characteristics; it seemed as if the earth had collapsed at some point long ago. 

And it was fertile. Palms grew tall about the upwelling water, he saw sheep and goats and stands of barley ripening to pale-gold. Smoke curled up from cook-fires and hens pecked busily about a grindstone. There was a sense of settled order about the place and he saw irrigation channels, the wheel of water-bearing pots turned by patient cattle under the shade of the palms. Outside the cave mouths that studded the rim of the valley, clothes dried in the sun. 

He dismounted, allowing his guide to take the horse, and waited as a silence descended and two people approached him; a man and woman walking apace. They stopped several paces before him and bowed. 

“The Mother of the tribe welcomes you to the Earthwell,” the man said. 

 

_I am too old for this,_ Iylar thought as the Dark Prince sat down before her at her gesture. She had not risen to greet him, but had felt the urge to do so. Her memories of seeing him so many years ago had smudged the vivid force of his beauty, and then, anyhow, she had not been so close. 

And still she had no hint in dream or vision on smoke to tell her why it was so important that this one was here now. 

“I thank thee for receiving me, Lady,” he said with perfect courtesy. He had removed his swords and his hands, ringless and slender, rested unthreateningly on his knees. Iylar saw the callouses on them, such as warriors earn, then her eyes traced the tattoos on his arms, and lifted to his face. One of the fabled White Fiends indeed, or more — instinct and insight told her he was more, but his eyes barred her probing like metal. 

“You have the right to be here,” she said and heard, from beyond the cave mouth the shifting of the crowds who had drawn closer. She hesitated, uncertain of how to address him, or even, when it came to it, what tone to use with him. 

He saw it, and said gently. “There is a mystery, lady, about Sud Sicanna. I know the legends, for I have journeyed here for a long time, spoken to the Azanti. There are certain things I...avoid knowing, lest others come to know of it. But now, for a time, I have a little freedom.” 

“Chains of fire,” Iylar whispered, and saw the surprise in the unnatural eyes. 

“So thou dost see indeed.”

“Little,” she was forced to admit. 

“Then let us put out heads together,” he suggested. “I intend to rule Sud Sicanna until my master, Sauron comes back into his power. And he will, but it will not be for a long time, as Mortals count the years. I came here because I have links with the city through the Azanti, no more than that. So I believed, but there is more, is there not? I have seen many cities and nations, lady, and in all those who fell under the domination of Sauron and the Dark God, long ago, there is always an injustice to their treatment of women. Under the surface...? Not all Men are cruel, and not all ill-treat their wives or daughters, the same is true in Sud Sicanna, but nowhere have I seen such brutality. I came because I remembered Uwath as a corrupt man whom the world would not miss – because I wanted to see if I could rule a city, alone, freed from my...service for a time, oh, for many excellent reasons. Yet I am curious. There is such a discrepancy between the Azanti and the people of Sud Sicanna, perhaps because the tribe is said to worship a Goddess. Yet they did not when I lead them from the north, and neither do the White Wolves. It is said that when all hope was lost, when those whom had left the northern desert were ready to die in the wastes, the wife of the leader was lead here in a dream. By a goddess? And what of the altar stone in the temple, for that is what it is, is it not? Thy people found it, long ago, it is said.” 

Iylar made the sign against evil. Her eyes squinted as if trying to bring his face into sharper focuss. 

“I have heard that you entered the temple, Lord.” She gripped her hands together. “You slew that demon, Mokar,” she spat the name out.

“Yes, of course,” his answer was brusque, but Iylar felt the fury, an unending, living stream of it. “I will not tolerate the slaughter of children!” 

“You saw the stone, and felt nothing, lord?”

His eyes were wide and interrogative. Then he smiled, cold and hard as the scimitars that he had laid down like an offering of peace outside the cave. 

“Mother of the Tribe,” he said. “I have sat at the feet of the Dark God as his slave. The stench in that temple is all-too familiar to me. What else should I have felt but disgust and contempt?” And it was there in his voice, in the bite of the last word. 

“Who are you?” Iylar demanded through the dry fear at the back of her throat. “What are you?”

“Well, I am no God,” he assured her dryly. “As I have said, I have been a slave to both, to Sauron and to Melkor, the darkest God of all.”

_And he hates them._ She had never felt such anger, although his face showed nothing of it.   
“Murder,” she coughed and watched as he rose, poured water from a jar and handed it to her. 

“All His temples are built on murder,” he said matter-of-factly. 

“On the murder of a goddess?” Iylar asked harshly.

Vanimórë paused in the act of tilting the jug to a second cup. The lamp-flames jumped, and the drug-fume from the copper dish cast a mist between himself and the woman. He recognized the smell, the herb which many tribal shamans across the Harad used to open their minds. Sometimes they did see into past or future, but much of the time they hallucinated. The Mother's pupils were dilated; she must have inhaled a little to try and see where he fitted in to the Azanti's legends. And had, he surmised, seen nothing. 

_Do not worry, for I am damned if I can see anything either._ He mentally reviewed every story he had heard from gallant, long-dead Fëapolda of the Powers of the West. The Elf had never mentioned any tale of a murdered Valie. 

He said: “This is outside any knowledge I have.” 

Iylar brought a thin fist down on her knee, and took a deep breath. _She thinks I should know..._

“It was before Men, before the White Fiends,” she said and then gathered herself, and began to intone as a bard might, a lilt coming into her voice. 

“When the Gods walked the Earth, She came here, and made the land fecund in preparation for those whom would waken. She walked alone, drew water from the depths, and grain and vines grew and the desert was no desert, but green, fertile as a young maiden.” Her eyes closed. “The Gods came to her, as all Men do, and lay with her in the green grass, and then she sent them away, satisfied and smiled, for she knew they would return. She was the Mother, the wellspring of the Earth, the rich soil and the spring in the secret place. But there were rivalries even among the Gods, and one who hated her: the Dark God, the Black One Whom Enslaves.” 

“Bauglir,” Vanimórë said like the kiss of acid. “The Constrainer.” 

Iylar's eyes opened, cloudy as the drugging smoke as she dipped into the dreams, the dreams, Vanimórë realized, of every woman whom had ever been a Mother of the Azanti. 

“He desired the Mother, but she refused him alone of all the Gods, for he was destruction and she was Life and the two cannot meet.” 

“Go on,” Vanimórë urged when Iylar stopped. 

“So the Dark God returned in rage and raped the Mother on the great stone. And then he laughed and raised a black knife, wound about with the darkest magics and drove it into her breast.”   
The old woman laid her hands over her chest as he had seen Fhara do in Bradhi's palace and her head was flung back as if in grief. 

“But she smiled as she died, and wept for his emptiness, and told him there was life in the dying. Her body vanished, and the waters welled up like tears. It is said that when the the Dark God set a curse upon the place where he had slain the Mother, that it would remain blasted and dead until the world ended. Yet it is not so. Her tears still flow in the waters under the earth.” 

There was complete silence when Iylar ended, save for her harsh breaths. The rustling murmurs beyond the cave mouth had subsided. 

_I have never heard of this..._

_Is it true?_

It explained much: why the Azanti revered a Goddess who seemed to represent fecundity, their belief that it was her influence that provided water in the killing desert.   
He had seen too much to dismiss the tale, but he did not know if it were a myth or was based on truth. It could merely be a rich-colored story which offered a supernatural reason for something as perfectly natural as aquifers in a desert. A Power, after all, could not die. 

And yet...there was the blighted desolation he felt in the desert, overpowered in the city by the press of humanity and life, a sense of ancient violence and murder. Vanimórë could not afford to have an easily influenced mind, but he felt as the Elves did and he saw ghosts like smoke, sometimes the echoes of pain and grief that rang down the years, and sometimes more. 

He left Earthwell at dusk. He had learned what he had come to learn, but it had lead him to a dead end, and he did not wish to be long away from the city. By dawn he was ensconced in his rooms in Bradhi's palace, watching the sun rise. 

Such a silence on the edge of the desert...anywhere else, he found it poignant as music. Here, it was like a lament. 

The temple...He had only told the truth to the Mother of the Tribe. All temples to Melkor reeked of death and blood. He had seen sacrifices in Angband which made death under a priest's knife seem a gift, had himself danced while killing, an offering to Melkor, to Sauron. 

Now the temple doors were closed, and he had issued a proclamation that only he knew the wishes of the Dark Gods, and any sacrifices would be chosen by himself. A lie, of course, but they believed him when he said he was the waking Eye of Sauron, and the priesthood had never been loved, though doubtless there were those who believed in blood sacrifice and would already be plotting. He would deal with that when the time came. 

He could admit to himself that did not wish to set foot in the temple again, but he thrust his cowardice aside. It had to be done, and so he would do it; stand in the silence of dead incense and old blood and open his mind, another thing he would never willingly do in such a place. But his curiosity was roused now; at the least he wanted to discover if the tale he had been told had any fragment of truth in it. 

The Temple. 

The altar stone. 

A murdered goddess...? ~

...................................................


	8. ~ The Sleeping Goddess ~

_~ People accept one at one's own evaluation. Or, and which is rather more to the point, they accept the evaluation one portrays._

Vanimórë rode through the streets and the people watched. While traveling he had donned the garb of the desert, but before entering Sud Sicanna, he offed it, showing his face. He heard the murmurs as he passed: some whispered (very quietly) that this overturning of the order would bring doom upon the city, while others were firm in their belief that the Prince was indeed the Zigûr’s eye upon them. He looked too unearthly to be an impostor. 

 

The fact that he had usurped the Sultan left them unmoved; the succession of power in Sud Sicanna was often accomplished by the garrote or poison. Those who muttered the most against the new laws, were those who considered it their right to own their women and children, to sell or kill them if they desired. They were men who enjoyed inflicting pain, and Vanimórë knew that the fear his public executions had engendered was only temporary. Who knew or cared what went on behind closed doors? _I do._

It was time to begin planting the seeds of his omniscience, which would involve little more than some sleepless nights, and he was accustomed to those. 

And this night would also be sleepless. 

On his return to the palace, he called Jaisal, Aan and Zadina to his chamber and heard their reports. Nothing untoward had happened, Jaisal informed him, standing straight-backed, but there was relief in his voice at Vanimórë’s return. 

“I even made it out with my testicles,” Vanimórë said and Jaisal stared and then his mouth twitched. 

“I must admit, Sire, I believed they would try to kill you, even if they did not succeed.”

Vanimórë shook his head, a smile folding his lips. “How does Sakkarah?”   
He had told Jaisal to take the boy under his own instruction for a few days, and the captain reported that he was coming along well. 

“He needs to learn more control, but the young are always rash.” 

“It is a way of releasing his anger,” Vanimórë murmured. “In his case, anyway.”

“And I agree that he has much to release, Lord. I have been pairing him with some experienced older men who can easily disarm him.” 

“And there has been no sneers of catamite? Good.” 

“No, Sire, not among the soldiers. Many of them have sons and few of them loved the priests. But they do think that Sakkarah is being...” 

“Kept for my couch?” Vanimórë finished for him with an ironic lift of his brows. “Sakkarah shall be whatever he wants to be. In Khand, young warriors often have a mentor, an older officer who is also their lover, but there is no such tradition here. Perhaps Sakkarah will one day hold thine own rank, Jaisal, or more. He has aptitude and determination.” He drew the quill through his fingers. “I am spending the night in the temple. When I return, go home to thy wife and son for a few days.”

The gratitude showed, but there was pain under it. 

“I would give thee and thy wife chambers in the palace,” Vanimórë continued. “but I do not think thy son would want to return here.”

“He...does not speak, Sire.”

Vanimórë's said quietly: “Do not press him; one builds a wall against horror. To dismantle it will take time, perhaps all his life. Does he shrink from thee?” 

The pain now showed clear. “Not from my wife, but from me.” 

“Thou art a man, as Uwath, and at the moment, he associates men with pain.” He rose. “One of the hounds has not long whelped. Choose one of the pups for him. They show only affection and are innocent as he was. And he will remember thou didst give it to him.” 

Jaisal seemed about to protest but after a moment, nodded. “Perhaps it would help, Sire,” he conceded. “May I ask...why would you go to the temple.” 

“Why, to commune with the Dark God,” Vanimórë drawled. “At least, that is the story thou shalt set about, and what the people will believe. It might even be true.” He laid down the quill. “I will be back by the dawn horn.” 

Jaisal did not like it, but he saluted and left the chamber at Vanimórë's gesture. Aan was next to enter, with a great sheaf of papers. He sat in silence, while the prince went through them, creating two piles. 

“These, I will look at presently and call thee after I have signed them. How are the alterations to the womens quarters proceeding?” He could hear the tap of chisel on stone and the methodical thump of hammers.

“The ladies are interested, Lord,” Aan told him. “Although the youths have been murmuring that their own quarters have not been touched.” 

Vanimórë tapped the map of the palace on the table. “A gate will be made here,” he said. “From their garden into the women’s. Uwath preferred his males very young,” he added grimly. “The few that are here have enough living space, but none of them, the men or women, have enough to do. This area will be made into workrooms, a bathing pool, and a training ground, for any of the men who desire to become soldiers, or simply to test their bodies. The work-rooms and the gardens will be communal. Perhaps they may wish to learn metal work, potting, medicine, weaving, or other crafts. And few of them can read or write.” 

Aan bit his tongue. Vanimórë sat back with an almost mischievous smile.   
“Of course, the men and women will not use the communal areas at the same time.” 

The young man breathed out. 

“At least initially.” The young man’s mouth opened. “It would be scandalous if any should meet and mingle. Who knows what might come of it? The gate left unlocked by a careless warder...assignations under the moonlight...” Seeing the puzzlement on the other's face Vanimórë could no longer withhold his laughter. 

“It would please me if the men and women of the seraglio mingled,” he explained. “They are young. They have never known love or even had the freedom to fall in love and choose their own mates. I need not say anything at all. It will happen; a look, a smile...and all else will follow.” 

“But, sire, the penalty for such a thing is — was,” Aan corrected himself swiftly, “death by dismemberment! They all know that.” 

“They all think they know it. I will breathe a word in Zadina's ear, as thou shalt in the ears of the boy’s that if such an outrageous thing should happen, I will dower the woman and give the couple a house in the city. Or they may stay in the palace, for many have known little else. But in these rooms,” he traced a finger over the map. “they can learn how to run a house, if they wish.” He watched the dark young face and said: “Is there one thou hast thine eye on?” 

“I would not so presume, sire!” 

“Oh? Well, do let me know if thou doth feel an urge to...presume.” 

The young man, clever though he was, did not understand, did not know that to Vanimórë the seraglio was a prison, a waste of life. The women and boys waited for the eye of their master to fall on them, and those times defined their lives until they grew old and were discarded. And, to him, they would grow old quickly. In some lands it was the custom for the older women to be sent to a distant palace until they died, although never here, in Sud Sicanna. Their fate was death at the hands of the mob. Or had been. 

“Oh, and I want thee to make it absolutely clear that there is to be no force. If there is, and I will _know_ if there is, there _will_ be dismemberment, and it will not be the women.”

“Yes, Lord. It is understood.” Aan nodded vigorously.   
Releasing the young man from his bewilderment, Vanimórë waited for the wisdom Zadina might bestow upon him. 

After he had spoken, she gave him a very strange look. He had seen it before and recognized it as the age-old look a woman reserved for the obtuseness of all men. 

“I have said something very stupid?” he inquired. 

“It is a...very generous idea, my lord,” Zadina said carefully. 

“And now for the but.” 

“My lord, if they are happy here, you would not force them to leave?” 

“Of course not.” 

“You have treated them with more consideration and generosity than Uwath ever did,” she crumbled the name between her teeth. “You do not humiliate us when we come to your bed. Most men of this city would not be as you are.” 

“Not all of them are cruel,” he stated. “The Azanti respect their women, and there are more in the city than any-one realizes.” 

“I know nothing of them, my lord,” Zadina said quickly. 

“Of course not,” he said again, smiling. “Do not trouble thyself with these proposals yet. I would not marry off any woman to a man who would misuse them, yet...what life have they here?” 

“A better one than Jehana and her mother endured,” the woman snapped. “And that pig of a man you executed was no worse than Uwath, or many others.” 

“True.” Vanimórë walked to a side-table and poured wine. “Here, drink. Do not look so doubtful. I know they have known little else than their lives in the Seraglio, but those are unnatural, surely thou canst see that?” 

Zadina took the wine, “No-one knows it more than I, my lord. And yet, if they were freed they would be as helpless as caged birds released into the desert.” 

“At least they should have the choice to love, to have the freedom for that.” he flicked her a glance. “And of course, there may be women who love other women, men who love other men. Or both.” 

She swallowed too much wine, too fast. For women to lie together was a crime in the city; sometimes Uwath had wanted to see two of them having sex, and after they would be taken away for execution, even as he wiped the seed from his own release from his hands. One knew it happened between men, but that was no offense, of course; nothing men did was wrong. 

“I wish thou wouldst realize that the laws here do not interest me. I make my own. I think pleasure, and certainly love, is too rare to legislate against.” He added, to be sure she understood. “Such things do not trouble me, Zadina. Why would they?” 

She stared at him. “Do all the Lichtloth believe as you, lord?” 

“I would not know. I am a servant of Sauron,” he reminded her. “Whatever my blood I have not often been among the Elves. They had some ridiculous laws foisted on them by the Gods, but the more intelligent think them dross, I believe.” His mouth suddenly hardened. Pouring his own goblet full, he went on: “The men and women I inherited deserve a little pleasure, freedom, _life._ ”

Zadina bowed her head to hide the shock in her eyes.   
“Lord, may I assure them that they will not be thrown out or punished if they should chance to...be tempted? That they may stay here?” 

“I have already said none of them will be discarded, and yes, I do see that they are ill-prepared for a life of freedom, but they can learn. If they wish. Yet,” he sipped the wine. “this is a luxurious prison. It would not suit me.” 

“Lord, you are a man. With a man's freedom. You would have to be a woman to understand.” 

“I am not _quite_ arrogant enough to think I can understand women.” A mischievous smile looked out of his eyes. “Which is why I ask thee.” 

“You have given them a safety they never knew under Uwath, that I never knew under his predecessor,” Zadina explained. “Good food, wine, medicines, jewels and fine clothes. They are not afraid and they do not have to toil to live.” 

“Do they not?” he asked mildly. “They have to — or think they have to — offer their bodies to a man they neither know or love. Even with training, that is...must be...hard.” 

Zadina stared at this prince whom had walked into the palace one night and put Uwath and his followers to a dreadful death, then taken the rulership of the city as effortlessly as a man slipping his hand into a glove. There was something oddly reassuring in the fact that he genuinely seemed not to understand women. It made him more...human. 

“None of them have... ” she dipped about for the word. 

“Complained,” he supplied. “Hardly would they.” 

“She gave up. “Uwath enjoyed hurting, humiliating.” She looked down at her hands. “And killing, as you know.”

“I know.”

Looking up, she saw that his eyes were fixed on something, she thought, in memory, and it was not pleasant.  
“You,” she said, “do not humiliate, or hurt.” 

“I have tried, in my life, to ensure that those who come to my bed feel pleasure,” he murmured. “It only requires patience, and after all, and of course one must learn what a woman likes. By asking her usualIy. I have the time to be patient. I have had the time to learn.”

“You have succeeded, my Lord.” This was a very...unusual conversation. And what man ever learned what a woman liked? None she had ever heard of. But then, he was not a Man. 

“Oh, good!” He came from that dark place and threw her a wink. 

“The ladies say...” She watched as he leaned back against the wall in that characteristic, indolent pose which belied his perpetual alertness; one booted foot drawn up to rest against the stone, goblet in hand, the thick hair pulled over one shoulder. A beautiful predator at rest. 

“If they are content, then so am I.” He drank. 

“They say that they did not believe a man could ever cause them to reach the moon so many times, my lord,” Zadina went on in a blushing hurry over his cynically raised eyebrow. “And that you are...endowed as...mightily as your stallion.” 

He made a choking sound. Wine sprayed over the table. “Excuse me,” he turned away, coughing, bent over, resting one hand against the wall. His shoulders heaved. “Please...Slap my back.” 

Zadina came to her feet, something so huge and irresistible was building within her, that she thought she might burst if she did not release it. She clapped a hand to her mouth, but the laughter found its way past. And the prince threw back his head and joined her; a deep ripple of amusement.

.....................................................

The girl lifted her head as she heard the laughter. Raakshi was purring under her gentle stroking. Jehana was surprised at how calming it was just to sit here, in this quiet, scented room caressing the small cat. Her mother looked up from where she was spinning.

There had been many words between them; recriminations, guilt, wounds torn open and bathed with the salt of their tears. Jehana had been surprised at her fear when Zadina told her that the prince was leaving for a few days, and startled at her reaction when her mother was brought into her rooms. Anger brought a hot rush of words to her mouth and she raised her hand to lash out.

Emotion screwed itself deep into Kalma's face and her mouth twisted. Tears spilled from her eyes, soaking into the veil, and Jehana cried out: “We should have killed him!” 

“I should have, I should have! I was afraid!”

“And so was I!” she remembered the dry fingers pushing into her, the mob calling for her death.

“I am sorry!”

Zadina, standing watchfully by the doors, said: “The prince's orders are to return your mother to her rooms if you wish it.”

“He was selling children to the Sultan!” The girl ignored this. She stepped across to her mother and grasped the thin shoulders. “Did you know? Adani...”

Kalma shook her head. “No! He had silver. I saw the box in his workroom, but I did not know how he came by it...”

“There was nothing you could have done,” Zadina offered. “We knew Uwath had children. Whom would we go to with such news?” 

Jehana turned away with a sob, biting her lip. “May we have wine?” she whispered. 

It was the best thing they could have done. The wine purged much of the poison from them, and not gently, as neither of them were accustomed to it. Jehana did not know that such rage was in her, or such hate against Chafal in her mother. It could not be said they were reconciled, but when Kalma, asked, humbly, if she might see her daughter again, Jehana checked her bitterness. She realized she had choices now, and Chafal, after all, was dead. 

Kalma was very quiet for the first few days, but Jehana was conscious of the long looks cast her way. Now, as they both listened to the laughter from the adjoining chambers, her mother said:  
“The Prince...have you spoken to him?” 

“No.” Jehana's reply was bald.

“But these rooms are...” 

“He brought me here, he saved my life.” Jehana put Raakshi gently aside and rose. “I do not have to see him, Zadina promised me.” 

“Ay, she would.” 

Her daughter turned. “What do you mean?”

“She is called to his bed is she not? And I have heard the other women vie for him, if you—“

“I am not one of his women!” Jehana flushed and clasped her arms about her. “After _him_ do you think I want that ever again?” 

“No. But not all men are like Chafal. Your father was not...” 

“You should have killed yourself and me too before marrying that pig!” Her hands were damp with perspiration, clammy and chill in the warmth. 

“Do you think you are the only one who suffered? Or that I was? What of the children Uwath murdered – what of the women in the Seraglio, and others?” Kalma breathed hard. “Many have suffered, many will continue to suffer.” The heat drained from her voice. She looked very tired, old before her time. 

“There are new laws...” 

“And they will make no difference at all. This prince cannot be everywhere. But he at least is not cruel to his women.” 

“He wants nothing from me!” Jehana heard her voice flutter with panic. 

“All men want something,” her mother said dryly. “Oh girl, why do you think that pig, as you call him, and rightly! wanted you? You are more beautiful than I ever was, and your father would have killed another man for looking sideways at me. Use it! You could have great power!” 

“I do not want to be touched. I will not be touched! I wanted to die each time that pig touched me. I would rather die!” She ran into the bedchamber and curled up on the bed — the bed of a concubine, she thought with revulsion. 

No! She would kill him first. She would not be handled, hurt and possessed again. Her fingers clenched as if upon the handle of a dagger...

.....................................................

He liked to touch, but he was not intrusive. A rub of his foot down her calf, the brush of fingers. Uwath had grasped and pulled as if at dough, and his predecessor, although less brutal, used women as if they were made for him alone, with no minds, no feelings. Zadina was far more used to womens caresses, but the prince was almost as tactile as a woman. He seemed to savor touch.

“Thou must know something of the Goddess,” he murmured, leaning on one arm. 

He tried very hard, she thought, to make one comfortable in his presence, but close to, his beauty held a depth which was unbearably rich. His eyes could look blank as enamel, but sometimes, as now, in the shared aftermath of pleasure, their opacity cleared to pellucid violet . His flesh looked poreless, a mask of alabaster, but he was vividly, shockingly real. Zadina knew it would be far too easy to become intoxicated by him. He...charmed. But why would he even make the effort to do so? 

“Come now,” he smiled at her cautious silence. “Women need a female goddess to understand them. If there was not one, thou wouldst invent one. The Mortals who came under the Dark God's influence worshiped him, and none of the female Powers ever came to Men, or I have never heard of it.” 

“If there was a goddess for women, my lord, she would hardly be worthy of our worship,” Zadina's voice rang harshly. “She has done nothing for us.”

He frowned, his fingers closed on her thigh, firm, gentle, a squeeze of sympathy.   
“Thou hast reason not to trust,” he said. Then: “The Azanti are keepers of an old legend. They say that long before Elves or Men walked Arda, the Dark God slew a Goddess here. The Mother, they call her. I do not think the Powers can die, but something did happen here. There is a desolation about the desert, as I have felt in cities blasted by war where the bones lie unburied and screams echo in the mind.” 

Zadina's mouth dried. She passed her tongue across her lips, and he moved, handing her a cup of wine. His face was intent, but there was no threat in it. 

“There was a slave in the Seraglio in Uwath's early years,” she said very softly. “She had Azanti blood, I think, three, four generations back. She spoke of the Mother, Lord.”

“What did she say?”

“Very little. Some-one tattled. She was taken away. We never saw her again. She called her, the Mother, the Sleeping Goddess.” 

“I want to know if it is true,” he lay back, hands behind his head. “I think it is. The altar in the temple is the place where the Mother was killed, according to the Azanti. I will go there this night and see what I can feel.” 

“But, my Lord...!” Zadina felt a thrill of antipathy. “I beg you...do not go there. It is a haunted place. Sakkarah said there were cries and screams there and shadows that moved...” 

“I do not doubt it,” he said placidly. 

“It is the Dark God's place, dedicated to him! It could...influence you... so that you become like Mokar, like Uwath and...” she clipped her lips together as he turned his head. Surprisingly, there was a smile on his mouth. 

“My dear lady...! The Dark God could not influence me when he was on Arda. He will not do so now.” He sat up and his look sank into her, warm and roused and reassuring. “I will not come back a monster. There is naught Morgoth Bauglir can do to me that he has not already done.” 

“Lord, why do you care?” she asked, daringly, as his hair fell over her hot loins. 

“I had a sister once,” he responded simply. “I loved her very much.” 

And then his mouth and tongue were on her and within her and her fear melted in the heat that coiled in her and spread from her core like rills of burning wine.

............................................................


	9. ~ Visions of Blood ~

Old blood, smoke, the ashes of incense. 

He had come silently through the streets once the sun went down. The markets still hummed, for Sud Sicanna never truly slept and the gates were always open. 

The area around the temple though, was unnaturally silent. Haunted, Zadina had said.   
Undoubtedly. There was a reek of terror in this place. It lingered like the burned incense. And it was not fear alone, but the lack of any hope. Here children had begged for mercy, screamed for help which never came. 

The torch burned a red light into his eyes. Its flame seemed a small, wavering thing that deepened that blackness to webs of pitch. Vanimórë thought of Sauron's temple in Armenelos. That had been built with all the wealth of Númenor and all of Sauron’s skill. This was much older. The seas had drunk Númenor; here, the blood and greasy soot of human sacrifice had never been washed away. The temple brooded.   
Goose-flesh rose on his arms as he walked toward the altar. He raised the torch and the statue eased itself from shadow. 

There were few statues to Morgoth. Perhaps those people who erected the temples felt that they could not capture his appearance, or dared not, and few Men had ever seen him. This carving was unusual in its execution and detail. He made himself — forced himself — to observe the details that had slipped by him when he had come armored and vengeful to release the children. 

His eyes widened. This was the Melkor Vanimórë had known, yet greater, as he had been before his will disseminated itself into Arda and diminished what he had been. 

And he must have been _magnificent_. The light drew out, for one moment, the noble line of brow, arching brows, and sensual lips, reddened the high cheekbone like a blush, then melted into the force of arrogance and hate that could still cow and bring men and gods to their knees or twist their minds into tormented cruelty. It was a master-work like unto the statue in Barad-dûr. How old was it? 

_Did he make it? Melkor himself_? Or Sauron? 

He looked down from the face, which changed with every pulse of the torch, to the altar stone at his feet, a great slab, naturally squared by the ancient movements of the earth. 

The statue had been raised over a place Melkor slew a goddess? 

He looked up once more, then very deliberately, he took off his clothes, laid them neatly beside the altar. 

“Not for thee, Morgoth Bauglir,” he said aloud, and the air breathed old nightmares on his flesh. 

“We come naked from our mother's womb, even one such as I.” 

He took his dagger and drew a line across one palm, let is splash upon the stone, fresh blood over old stains. 

“Not for thee,” he said again and lay back upon the altar; a living sacrifice. His heart beat like crow’s-wings in his ears and the memories swooped down on him. Melkor upon him, inside him, chaining him, the pain, the degradation... 

Blackness pounced upon his eyes. ~

.....................

It was too easy to imagine Morgoth was there, waiting in the darkness. There was a weight to the silence. The crack and shift of stone, the crackle of the torch, birthed other sounds: hissing and whispering, plaintive sobs, screams that seemed to come from underground.

It was as if time had run from under his feet and he was in Angband again...

The thought gouted dread through him. He felt his muscles lock against it. 

He had to go there, into the darkness, and through it, to the other side to find what lay here under the blood-worship of years...

There was no hand to lead him there, no strength or faith to draw upon and he had long ceased to even desire any aid. 

After Vanya died... _No, I will not smudge the truth, after I killed her — and I do not regret it! —_ (Cannot regret it) he had been moved to a room gnawed like a rat-hole in the rock. It was deep, deep underground.

There was a lantern, but he learned to save the oil, for it was replenished only rarely. At the beginning he had been desperate for light, though it illuminated nothing but raw stone walls, a latrine hole with the cold sound of water running in the depths. Fumes breathed upward from far below: the washings from Melkor’s great smithies, effluent from other waste-holes. 

The lantern had burned out and he had sat frozen, while his eyes adjusted slowly, allowing him to see as in thick fog. Sometimes he thought he heard a child weeping, as if it were crouched in a corner of the room, but there was no-one there. At other times real screams carried through the deep sewers. Over all was the incessant, distant pound of the forges, like the heartbeat of Melkor himself. 

So he had sat, until the guards brought food, the yellow light of their torches pushing back the gloom for a brief moment. There was always a barrel of water. He was expected to wash before he was taken to Melkor, but he needed no urging, trying with rough scraps of cloth to scrape away the invisible grime of shame. He learned, too, to use the lamp oil to prepare himself, sliding his fingers into his passage with a shudder of abhorrence at what was to come. Sometimes Melkor noticed, sometimes he did not. 

When the dark became too much he would exercise to keep himself supple; he still thought then, he would dwindle, become bent and old, as some of the thralls he had seen. There was nothing to tell him otherwise save the evidence of his own eyes; that his arms and legs were still hard and smooth-fleshed. Fëapolda had taught him methods of exercise the Elves had used in Aman and he ran through each one methodically, for he was frightened of being alone in the darkness. It seemed foolish after all else that he had experienced, but Melkor seemed to lurk within it, and Vanimórë could imagine him melting from the pitch shadows and taking on form, the doors and walls no barrier.

Sometimes, (because there was no way for him to tell the passage of day and night) he thought that he would be forgotten, and fresh terror was added to the load that strained against his mind. He felt the immensity of Angband above him, imagined he could see down from the peaks of Thangorodrim into the titanic delvings below, to himself, shut in a rock wormhole. How long would it take him to die, he wondered, with his Maia blood? Would he become a skeletal thing still living, crouching on the rock, gibbering in madness? He would feel the cold weep of sweat down his back at those times, and desperately fought the fear, until he heard the lock turn, and then he had to struggle not to weep with relief that he was remembered. 

He pushed himself through the fear, and that youth he had been looked back at him from the past, huge purple eyes in a white face. If he could, he would have comforted his young self, save there was no comfort to give. He came to the end of the terror, his breath shivering out of him — the end which was...

Melkor. 

_No..._

Yet in a sense, he _was_ Vanimórë's beginning, almost as much as Sauron was. His will had leached itself through the world, and in places like this temple, his presence was tangible. Vanimórë would not have been surprised to open his eyes and see life flush into the statue, the eyes fix upon him and Melkor incarnate again, would fall on him, gigantic and terrible... 

His teeth set. 

The Mother...that was why he was here, not for Morgoth. 

But what right did he have? His own birth had killed his mother and she had been kept alive only by Morgoth's darkest sorcery.

_I am sorry,_ he thought, to the woman he had never seen save, he believed, in his sister's face.

_Vanya..._

_She should have had a mother._

_In Angband?_ he protested acidly.

It was a place in his mind he refused to go: his mother, forced to bear Sauron's children. He did not even know her name, and he guessed that she was not the first, that Sauron had tried before and failed, that Melkor had lent his power to the successful experiment that had resulted in he and Vanya.

_So long ago. Born to this life..._

Non-existence. To never have been born...Vanimórë could imagine nothing so blessed.

Behind his eyes, the blackness wavered like blowing grave-clothes. There was nothing in this place but the tang of Melkor and memories of death. If there was something more he, being a man, could not touch it. 

He had fought the blackness like an enemy (and it wearied him to the bone, as it ever had) and at the end he found Melkor.

_What was thy first memory?_ The voice was like a distant echo, a golden bell in a lightless cavern.

Fëapolda's question, in Angband.

_A room — and him._

Tol-in-Gaurhoth. Sauron. But there was more. There was a beginning. Melkor was not the beginning. Not truly, neither was Sauron. 

His heart raged, a sound came from his throat and then, sudden and terrible, there was screaming, a woman screaming in the extremity of horror. The sound flayed his raw nerves. Memory thrust him brutally through time.

He saw a once-beautiful face ravaged, stretched in wildness as she looked at him — and the one who held him.

_Sauron. She saw him...oh, lady...oh, mother...at the end, she knew what had been done to her..._

He curled on his side, like the fetus that had grown wrongly and darkly in the woman's womb. The stone was wet under his cheek.

Not blood, but tears.

And there was silence.

 

Stars bloomed overhead, he felt a breeze touch him filled with the fragrance of jasmine.

Around him stretched grass, grey in the night. He heard the plangent throb of a nightingale, saw trees raised like the spears of an encamped army against the sky. Water ran somewhere. The stone was there, wound about with climbing plants and ferns that softened its edges.

A woman walked toward him. She was looking into the north and the wind lifted her hair, and although it was dark, her face shone with internal radiance. Her breasts were heavy and her hips rounded under a translucent robe. Then, as if a cloud-shadow crossed her face, she changed. He saw the features of a woman given to him when visiting a tribe south of Sud Sicanna. He remembered her buttocks like melons, her white teeth and the laughter which erupted straight from her belly. Her appetite for food and sex had been healthy and free of guilt, and they had enjoyed one another very much. Then she faded, and in her place stood the bony, taciturn widow from upper Khand, working in the great caravanserai south of the Eastern Gap, her husband and son dead of the plague. Other women appeared and faded, women he had known, if only for one night. He saw, in an eyeblink, his sister, their mother, Zadina, the seraglio women, Jehana and Kalma...

(he should, he thought long after, have realised _then_. 

And the Mother stood proud and fecund before him, waiting.

The wind blasted her with the smell of rotten ice and something cracked into the ground – Melkor descending like the Hammer of the Underworld, a mighty black flame smashing the earth.  
They faced one another and he spoke. The Goddess answered. Their language was like the flash of lightning strikes. She spread one hand palm-out before him in a gesture of denial. He caught it and dragged her toward him, darkness covering her like a thundercloud.

Vanimórë knew this was a vision. He could not have survived the collision of powers. Even in this dream-state he felt it as if he stood in the center of a firestorm. They used words like weapons, in that crackling, impossible language that he could not understand. But was it a battle? It seemed to him, when he saw the Mother emerge from the whirling pillar of Morgoth's shadow, that she taunted him. 

The air broke as he bore her down upon the stone, and he took her with a savagery that made her nothing but a body to vent his lust upon.

_No!_

But Vanimórë was held in vision, his body chained by Time. He was a witness, nothing more.

He could not see Melkor's face as he rose from her.

She said something then, out of the pain, crystal shards of sound. He smelled blood, and spilled seed as red ran from between her legs like birth-blood, falling onto the grass.

A great dagger rose, black flame-shaped. It came down like hatred manifest. And then Melkor ripped her apart. 

Vanimórë thought, after, that what he was shown was not real, but symbolism; nevertheless...Red gobbets scattered from her womb as it was wrenched out and flung away. Time flashed by, and he saw images in frozen moments. The statue rearing over the stone, the outraged fertility of the land screaming into desert save where her womb-blood had fallen. As the womb of a woman was fertile, so these places remained so in a land blasted by her death; the oases about Sud Sicanna, and Earthwell.

But a Power cannot truly die.

He groped upward into consciousness, to the smell of old blood, incense, the tomb-like oppression of the temple. He thought, on the edge of hearing there was laughter. A woman’s amusement. He frowned, wrestling with the dread, the sense of being back in Angband. The torch had burned out, the sharp stink of it hung in the air. He could have lit others, and had not, an act of defiance in the face of fear. 

He stood up. Behind him the statue loomed like a weight. 

“The land became desert after thou didst kill her.” His voice sounded strange and shocking to his own ears as it knifed into the muffling dark. 

“There was perhaps only one thing my father disagreed with thee on; thou didst to destroy the world.” A shiver ran up his back. “Holy Eru...was that what the Goddess was? An embodiment of Arda? Thou didst seek to murder the Earth by slaying her? And thou didst fail...but...”

His eyes flared suddenly wide in the thick gloom. 

“Her blood. The water rises where her blood fell. Earthwell is where thou didst hurl her womb. No wonder it is so fertile. Thou couldst not destroy her, Morgoth Bauglir, only her physical aspect. She is born of Arda, and is Arda.”

He could see now, faintly; the pillars, the huge empty fire bowls bowls.

_He tried to slay Arda, and could not, but what does this have to do with me?_

The darkness parted for him and let him through. ~

...........................................

Raakshi was something of a nighttime huntress, leaving Jehana at sundown and returning at dawn to sleep wherever her fancy took her in the rich chambers. If Jehana slept in the day, so did she, and Jehana did sleep a great deal, it seemed that the years when she had lay awake in dread and shame demanded their due in rest.

But she woke early, as she always had done, and Lula, hearing her stir, would rise to bring her juice and fresh bread with honey and an egg-dish. Jehana's appetite had increased since Chafal's death and her recovery from miscarriage and her thinness was smoothing out a little, so her mother and Zadina said. But Jehana would not gaze at herself in a mirror lest she saw the whore whom had tempted Chafal. It was foolish, she knew, to think that if she did not look at herself no-one else would. And no-one else did, save Lula, Zadina and her mother: still she would not leave her rooms. 

Yet she found herself more and more drawn to the balcony, for the gardens were beautiful. She could never have imagined such flowers and grass when she lived in the Street of the Potters. There were rumors of the palace, but it might have been a thousand leagues away, a myth from an ancient world. 

Today there were no noises from the workmen. They were, Zadina had told her, to have one day out of six free to rest. Such a thing was unheard of, but the prince had so ordered, and moreover, the men would still receive half their normal pay. 

At the thought of the prince, Jehana touched the handle of the fruit knife she had placed under her couch. It was extremely sharp. She had determined to use it if necessary, both on the Prince and then herself, for she could imagine the horrifying death she would face if she killed him. At night, she sometimes woke shaking, but the morning brought a calmer mood and she was able to hope that Zadina told the truth with her repeated assurances that he would not touch her.   
Now, on so still a morning, with the sound of the fountains and birds beyond the screens, she even felt she was arrogant to believe that with many beautiful women his for the choosing, the Prince would glance at her. She would be content, she thought, if she could remain here, untroubled, for the rest of her life.

In fact her youth and inexperience were misleading her. She was much healed physically, and with the resilience of youth, her cramped horizons were begging to be broadened. With the gradual withdrawal of poppy-syrup from her wine, she had become more alert. Her mind was still raw and sensitive, but her body was stronger and not content to be cooped within her rooms, for all the security she felt there.

Vanimórë understood how it felt to be young and caged, but even he had been given a certain amount of freedom to train, overwatched though he had been. He saw the lives of the seraglio women as unnatural and unsatisfying, and thus his implementation of plans designed to give them more freedom, more stimulation of mind and body. Even Jehana, a young woman damaged by terror and abuse, needed to occupy herself. That lay at the root of the strange sensation within her which she could put no name to. It was, in fact, restlessness. It nudged at her too, in dreams, made her think, out of nowhere of Bairi, loved by her husband, of Zadina, glossy and sleek after a time of pleasure with the prince. Her experiences clashed with the natural urges of a woman and left her disturbed and vaguely disgusted with herself. Vanimórë would have comprehended had he considered it, but he had spoken truly to Zadina; he thought Jehana a child, and his tastes did not run in that direction.

Jehana had begun to long to explore the gardens that lay below, to walk beside the long pools, under the arbors of jasmine and roses... If only she could be certain of being alone.

By now, she knew that once the slaves had raked the gravel paths and watered the grass and flowers, no-one would enter the gardens until the late afternoon, unless it were the prince, for the seraglio women who were permitted there slept late.

And the prince had not been here this night. Zadina had looked apprehensive when she had mentioned it and Jehana, with more naievity than accusation had blurted: “It almost seems that you will miss him.”

Even as she said it, she wanted to recall it. “Forgive me!”

“Oh child,” the woman murmured. “You do not understand. If he is killed, assassinated, what do you think would become of us? With him ruling Sud Sicanna, we are safe.”

“No woman is safe with a man!”

“I would have said the same, but his actions have spoken for him. I trust no man, but he is not the same.”

Jehana had slept ill last night, and she moved about the room, to the balcony, and back to her couch, biting on her knuckle. Her mother would not come until noon, she too was enjoying being able to sleep without fear.

If the Prince was away...

She pressed her forehead to the lacy stone and peered down. 

 

Then she saw Raakshi. The cat paced indolently to one of the fountains and sat down to wash. Something about her lazy relaxation was eminently reassuring.

“Lula?”

“Mistress?” The girl came forward.

“Is it easy to get to the garden from here?”

Lula looked startled. “Of course, mistress. It is but a step from here.”

“Will you take me?”

The hall was silent and shadowed, but Jehana immediately balked at the sight of two palace guards standing motionless at the end.

“They will not stop us, they are placed here to guard your rooms,” Lula whispered.

Jehana drew back. 

“It is customary, mistress. Every-one is so guarded in the palace.”

Taking a deep breath, Jehana passed them quickly, her eyes fixed on the floor. If they looked at her, she did not see them, but there was no sound of movement behind her as Lula lead her down two shallow flights of stairs and along a hall to another guarded door. Beyond lay the gardens.   
Jehana regretted her decision already. She did not want to be watched every time she moved, it reminded her too much of Chafal's eyes upon her. 

But the gardens were lovely. Raakshi was still sitting beside the fountain, this one shaped like a palm tree with water gliding down the long leaves. Around the basin ran a wide rim and behind it a path ran between high, dark-green hedges. The cat jumped to her lap as she sat down.

It was very quiet and the pour of water was soothing. Jehana let out a long, wavering breath. 

“It is beautiful,” she said, half-smiling.

“I can show you all the gardens if you wish,” Lula offered. At Jehana’s expression, she went on: “We will not see any-one so early.”

As they walked, the little slave told Jehana that the palace was like a hollow block of stone, built around its gardens, and those had been crisscrossed with walls; there were private gardens for the Sultan's ministers, one for visiting nobles, one for the women and the youths, who were of course segregated, although the new prince was changing that. She said, with a tiny giggle, that she hoped she might be permitted to run errands when the new garden was complete, since she had heard that some of the young men were most handsome. 

“Is that all you can think of?” Jehana snapped, and Lula cast her a surprised look and folded to her knees.

“I am sorry, mistress.”

Jehana turned away. “How can you think of wanting a man after what you have seen here?”

“Mistress, forgive me,” Lula said humbly. “I was told if I wished to marry, then I would be freed. I would still like to serve you, and Mistress Zadina, for you are kind, but I would be waged, and...”

“And your husband would take all you earned. Women are not permitted to own money or property!”

“They will be,” Lula said meekly. 

Jehana shrugged. “Nothing will change,” she echoed her mother.

“Perhaps not, mistress.” Lula was easily crushed. “I was but jesting. None of the seraglio youths would look at a slave-born woman as a wife.”

At once Jehana's anger died. She hated herself for having quashed the girls gaiety.   
“Then they are fools! You are very pretty, but I would hate to see you married to a man whom would use you.” 

“There are some good men,” Lula murmured timidly. “Captain Jaisal of the guards is one. Did you know Uwath took his son? He was found by the prince. And Aan, the overseer of the slaves now. He was taken by Uwath, before Barshon, the old overseer used him. He has been freed also.” 

“I think Zadina has spoken of them,” Jehana stopped at the and of the aisle of greenery. Zadina spoke of many things, and many times she had been so sunk in fear and weariness she had not paid attention, but the names were familiar. Adani, she thought, how was he, the dear boy?

“Aan lead me to Zadina, after Barshon took my maidenhead. He was kind. He carried me.”

“Took you?” Jehana looked at her sharply. “How old were you?”

“I was twelve mistress. Barshon took all the slaves save those purchased for the Sultan of course.”

Twelve? 

“Zadina tended me,” Lula said. “Barshon forgot about me, there were always many slaves and Zadina kept me out of his way.” 

“You still wish to marry, after such things?” Jehana asked in disbelief.

The girls face lowered. “Not all men are cruel.”

“Has he – the Prince...?” 

“Oh no, mistress.” Lula appeared shocked. “I am slave-born. I doubt he has ever looked at me.”

“But you would not be afraid if he did?” Jehana pressed.

A smile flickered. “The women say there is no reason to fear the prince, not in that way, and no, I would not be afraid. He looks like a god.”

.......................................

Vanimórë leaned against the wall, looking through the screens.

“Well, what sex wouldst thou give the Earth? Man or woman?” he asked.

Zadina had visibly calmed since the message had been brought to the harem for her to attend him. He could see by the shadows under her eyes that she had not slept, and her mien was cautious, even frightened. 

“Do not look so worried,” he reassured her. “The temple is a dark place, darker than any-one realized. but I needed to go there. I am not certain however, what it means.”

She relaxed at the tone of his voice, then exclaimed: “Lord, your hand.”

“Blood for the goddess,” he murmured. “Although perhaps it is not blood she required.” And then he rose and went to the balcony and asked the question. 

“A woman, my lord,” she answered without hesitation. “It is fertile as a woman is and gives us life and food.”

“And as capricious as a woman and as wild and unpredictable.” Vanimórë looked around with a gleam.

Zadina laughed. “If you say so, Lord.”

“I saw what happened here.” His smile faded. “The Dark God. Not Sauron, his master, Melkor came here long ago and confronted the Mother, raped her on the altar of sacrifice which stands in the temple. He killed her and tore her body apart. Where her womb fell and it's blood scattered I watched oases bloom even as the desert formed in outrage at her death. But a Power cannot die. I think...” he paused. “I am not sure, but I believe that the Earth is she and she the Earth, that she came into being with it. Morgoth wanted to destroy the Earth. I would go further and say that this is why the Mirror of Fire is so blasted and lifeless, why the desert bleeds desolation. But Morgoth could only kill her physical form...” He struck his cut palm against the stone. “I simply do not see, if this is indeed so, what it has to do with me. Here, Morgoth slew the Mother, the goddess of the Earth. His hatred for her lingers, and affects all men, making them treat their women worse than stray dogs...except among the Azanti, and they believe that they were lead here by the Goddess, by dreams. Perhaps I can change the hatred Morgoth left here. That is what the Azanti have tried to do ever since they came here.” 

“Lord, I would not presume to question one whom has lived so long, but...”

“No, I value thy wisdom, go on.”

“We have spoken of this, we women. My lord, behind closed doors, who cares what a man does to his wife or daughter?”

Vanimórë smiled again. This time it was devoid of amusement; white lightening portending a storm.   
“I do,” he said. “I am going to be rather busy, I can see.” He looked down into the garden. “This is the first time Jehana has come out, is it not?”

Zadina crossed to him, brows raised in astonishment. “Why, yes. This is a good thing! Her mother and I have tried to persuade her.” She paused. “Her mother is not helping her a great deal, my lord.”

“Oh?”

“It is obvious she wants her daughter to have...position here.”

“Ah.” He understood. “Bloody Hells, she is a child!” He looked at her and tipped back his head with a sigh. “I know she is a woman in this city, Zadina. I know she is old enough to marry, but she has been a prisoner for two years, not permitted even to go to the markets, she was trapped and her emotions were skewed and stunted. She is more a child than the little maid she walks with.” He strode to the table. “I should escort her to the Azanti.” Picking up a piece of charcoal he looked down at the sketch before him, then said abruptly: “Of course. That is exactly where she should go. What will she learn here? She is a little bird in a cage.” 

“The people think the Azanti barbaric, my lord. Surely Jehana will have heard this and be afraid of them?”

“Perhaps, but thou wouldst have to see them to understand,” Vanimórë tapped the charcoal on the parchment. “In fact thou shalt. I need to speak to the tribe-Mother again in any event. The city will think only that I take some of my women to Nuali Kabash, to Bradhi's villa. Thou shalt travel in litters to there.”

Zadina bowed, but reluctance was clear on her face. 

“Do not worry,” he said, sitting down. “The tribe will welcome her. She will not grow here, she will always be afraid of me, always be watched and proscribed by her circumstances. With the Azanti, she can truly begin to grow. Come with me. I will tell her. She will have to travel with me for a time, she must needs become used to my presence. It will not be for long.”

.......................................

Jehana heard the tinkle of Zadina's jewelry, the rustle of her gown, but she did not hear him approach. Nevertheless intuition warned her, or perhaps the scent she associated with him: spices, the musk of warm flesh. She spun around. Running was an impossibility. Lula was already bowed to the grass; Jehana found she could not move, even to lower her head. The world contracted in her sight to a broad expanse of black leather laced across a hard-muscled breast. The brass-ringed eyelets seemed impossibly vivid, as if burned into her eyes. Very far away, she was screaming. His voice came to her from an equally distant place, through the roar of blood in her ears.

“Lady,” he said, mildly enough. “I have bethought myself of a place thou may dwell, quite safe, overseen by a wise woman whom all her people hold in respect. It is far from the palace.” 

Far from the palace...? 

“I will explain inside.” Zadina's voice, her hands, gently holding her, leading her. “Your mother will go with you, of course.” 

The rest of the words were soothing, lapping at her as she was lead inside. She thought she tried to run but her legs were too weak, and she collapsed gently onto the couch, felt the cold rim of a goblet at her mouth, and wine on her tongue. 

“W-what?” she stammered and her head turned, stiff as a wooden doll's. He was not there. She put her hands to her throat. Zadina made her drink again, and rubbed her back. “No..no..where am I going?”

“The prince knows a safe place for you,” Zadina spoke gently. “Among people who treat their women well. I shall be journeying with you. I must admit to curiosity myself.”

Jehana shook her head so wildly tears flew off her cheeks.

“N-no..I want to stay here, I do not w-want to go, I...”

“You do, in truth,” Zadina sat down beside her and drew her close, whispering. “He knows of your mother's foolish words, he knows that here you will always be caged and always be afraid. You need not fear him, but you cannot accept that, and he knows it. With the Azanti you will be far from him and in a place where you can live without fear of any man.” Amusement threaded her voice. It was strangely calming. “He said any man who ill-treated a woman among that tribe would have their privates served to them on a platter.”

Jehana could not laugh, but she leaned her head against Zadina's breasts and wept.

..................................................

Poor child. Vanimórë had seen, as Jehana whirled to him, his sister's white-frozen terror when their father came to their chambers.

A murdered goddess, damaged women...Did it all stem from here? Had Morgoth been so afraid of the power of the Earth, the Mother? Sauron would surely know.   
Sauron was not here to ask. 

And again, somewhere, he heard a woman’s laughter.

...........................................

~~~ 


End file.
